Science Fiction On Stage

By Rob Price

 on September 4, 2022

When one thinks of Science Fiction, live theatre does not instantly jump to mind, but there are a surprising number of productions based on science fiction topics, most centering on dystopian futures and time travel.    I will be looking at three such musicals.

Urinetown (2001) – Urinetown is a satirical comedy musical based on the premise that in the future, a 20 year draught caused the making of private bathrooms illegal and a large corporate businesses charge to urinate in public amenities buildings.  If you cannot afford to pee, and if you go somewhere else, like in the bushes, you are arrested and sent to “Urinetown”.  A place rumored to be so terrible that it is worse than death.  After a young man’s father is sent to Urinetown, he begins a revolution for the right to pee without payment.  The show satires capitalism, politics, social responsibility, and the legal system.

Urinetown with book and lyrics written by Greg Kotis and music by Mark Hollmann, was an idea that occurred to Kotis while a student traveling through Europe and encountering a pay toilet.  You can imagine, finding a producer for a musical based on peeing might be problematic.  Originally the first production was going to be through the Neo-Futurists, and experimental theatre group in Chicago, but when that fell through, the New York Fringe Festival accepted the show.  This lead to the first Off-Broadway production, which would eventually open on Broadway on September 20^th 2001.  The show would go on to win several awards including two Tony’s for Best Book of a Musical and Best Score, as well as being Nominated in several other categories.  The musical is upbeat, comical but typical Broadway numbers.

Bat Out of Hell: The Musical – A dystopian futuristic retelling of Peter Pan using the rock songs written by Jim Steinman and sung by Meat Loaf on the Bat out of Hell trilogy albums (Bat Out of Hell, Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell, and Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose).  The play takes place in the dystopian city of Obsidian which was once Manhattan.  A young man, Strat, is the leader of “The Lost”, a group of kids whose DNA is frozen at 18 years old keeping him that age forever. During a protest against Falco, the ruler of Obsidian, Strat falls in love with Raven, Falco’s daughter. The show is their love story following the basic plot of Peter Pan.

The musical was several decades in the making.  Some of the elements go back as far as 1968 to a rock musical called The Dream Engine written by Steinman and Barry Keating while they attended Amherst College.  The rights were then bought by the New York Shakespeare Festival, where Steinman met Meat Loaf and Ellen Foley.  Through out the decades, Steinman would refine the musical, which was once called Neverland and Bat Out of Hell 2100.  In 2008, the final version was announced with the title Bat Out of Hell: The Musical. In 2015 a developmental lab for the show took place in New York and then in late 2016 a cast was assembled for the first public production in the U.K. which premiered at the Manchester Opera House on February 17, 2017.  Then opening in London in June of that same year.  The show wouldn’t return to New York until 2019.  If you are a fan of the original albums, this is a must see, or at least a must listen to show.

Back to the Future: The Musical – The most recent, and possibly strangest of the musicals we are examining in this article.  Based on the 1985 film of the same name.  The plot is the same as the movie.  Marty McFly travels back in time where he accidentally prevents his parents from getting together, jeopardizing his entire future. Marty must get his parents back together while attempting to get back to his own time, without changing anything else in history.

With music and lyrics by Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard and book by Bob Gale, the overture uses much of the theme from Robert Zemeckis’ 1985 film.  The songs are normal Broadway fare, but there are hints of the film score throughout.  The musical was originally scheduled for London’s West End in 2015, but got pushed back several times, finally making it’s premier in May of 2019, again at the Manchester Opera House and then finally to the West End for the 2021/22 season.  Infact, winning the Best New Musical, Laurence Olivier Award (The West Ends equivalent to the Tony’s).  It has been announced that the show will open on Broadway in 2023.

I have often said that almost any story can be put on stage with enough imagination and talent.  With inspiration comes from a variety of different places, these three shows prove that point.