They say lightning never strikes twice but you cant’t tell that to the cast of Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical. For those unaware, Percy Jackson is the main character from Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. Percy is a demigod scorn of the Greek god Poseidon and a mortal woman. The novels are a huge success and have a massive following so much that they were optioned into two films. That being said, the films themselves weren’t a huge hit but they had their enduring fandom. Thankfully movies and books weren’t the last stop for Percy. In 2014 Theatreworks USA crafted a hour long musical, The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical based upon the world of Percy Jackson and his world. The show was a hit and expanded to a tour. The tour was well received and fans were elated at the direction of the musical. That could of been where Percy Jackson as a IP ended but with some godly intervention The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical is back on tour and bigger and better than ever. I got a chance to get a sneak peek as the cast prepped for their 2019 tour and to ask them several pointed questions, like if they could be a god which one?
After an intro to the cast by director Stephan Brackett the company launched into three songs. Opening with “Another Terrible Day” with new cast member actor, Jorrel Javier, playing the role of Mr. D. Beside playing “Mr. D” Javier is also playing Percy’s best friend Grover. For Javier its been a dream to work on the musical, “I’ve been a massive fan since I was in sixth grade, it’s how I got through Middle School and so being able to be a part of the company of this touring company with original cast members has been a dream come true for me. I look forward to coming to rehearsal every morning and not a lot of people can say that.”
Even in the small space of the rehearsal studio Javier and the rest of the cast had the presence of preforming as if in the biggest of theaters. This bombastic explosion of energy is going to be key in The Lightning Thief up scaling of the musical as they are touring at larger spaces. I asked Barbara Pasternack, artistic director of Theaterworks USA and one producer of the musical, as well about the musical’s rise from a small scale 1 hour musical to expanding to a large touring show and how that affects the story telling.
“It started with the one hour version, (2014), that Theaterworks produced and sent around on a smaller scale and fans just embraced it and Rick Riorden agent loved it and helped us get the rights to expand it to a full length version that we did at the Lortel Theater in 2017 and it was like lightning in a bottle! The fans went crazy we started to get musical theater fans who knew absolutely nothing about The Lightning Thief and it just took off, and now we have this big national tour. For Theaterworks USA I feel like its a dream come true. I feel like its opening up doors for us artistically and helping us reach even more people.” – Barbara Pasternack
“Its so exciting to reexamine the show again in another phase of it’s life so lets see where it could go next and the tour is another way to say are we as clear with the storytelling as we can be, what are the other elements that we can add to to enhance the production musically, with scenery, with puppets, we have an incredible sound designer, Ryan Rumery, we just have a great team working to fill out there larger venues to make it fell as exciting as visceral as it did with the Lortel production,” Rob Rokicki.
This musical is quite larger and expanded from their first go around so I further asked Rob Rokicki, “Yeah you are doing a lot of larger spaces, from a musical standpoint is there changing of arrangements or music.
There is a little of that, absolutely we looked at stuff in terms of enhancing the orchestration a bit but part of it is to make sure that the actors still feel grounded and the story doesn’t lose its heart in a large venue. We are working really hard to ensure the spirit stays intact.”
So lets say this tour does absolutely amazing, which it will, whats next do you think an overseas tour?
“Whats so incredible about these books is that they are beloved by people all over the world so we are so excited about the tours that we get to reach all these audiences that wouldn’t have an opportunity to come to New York so wouldn’t it be exciting to take it to the next level. We know that there are people in the UK, in Korea, Australia that would love to see tho show and it resonates so much with people,” Rob Rokicki.
To wrap it up Pasternack left it up to the fans who have been the backbone of the shows so far. “The fans are very strong and so far everything they wanted to happen from the cast album to this tour has happened so if they keep supporting us and they keep coming who knows the sky is the limit.”
The next song the cast went through, “My Grand Plan” features one of the original cast members, Kristen Stokes, who plays Annabeth. I got to ask her about her character and her tour plans.
“She’s a smart girl, she’s strong-headed. She knows what she wants out of life and she wants a quest so bad so she sneaks her way into Percy’s quest and kinda helps him out,” Kristen says.
So basically this is like a quest as you are going on tour. Tell me about how its going so far.
“I love that segue, I’m so excited you know kind of like Annabeth this is gonna be my first tour even though I’ve wanted to go on tour. Right now we are really in sync right now Annabeth and I. We, the company, are planning so many great adventures across the country and meet new people, ” Kristen Stokes.
So what if it goes overseas?
“I mean that will be fun I haven’t heard any talk about that but I’m already excited about Canada so like I can’t imagine going overseas I would be way more excited. We’ll see if the gods smile on us and bring us over,” Kristen Stokes.
Speaking of gods, your character is aligned with Athena. If you could choose a personal god/power who would you choose?
“Honestly as a kid I always loved Athenna. I thought she was the coolest but if I had to pick someone else – Artemis Goddess of the hunt and the Moon. She’s so cool and also another warrior goddess. She’s just amazing,” Kristen Stokes.
The final song during the rehearsal was with the full company, “Bring On The Monsters“, which is the climatic last song of the musical.
So after the song and before the day was over I had to ask Mr. Percy Jackson himself, Chris McCarrell what it is like to have lightning strike twice and go out on a larger tour with this musical.
“I can actually relax and truly look at the show for the first time. It was such a quick process last time and there were so many rewrites and we were getting thrown new music, getting completely new staging so this time I came in I knew the songs I knew the show. So now we can really refine and polish the production we did last time. This cast has a lot of personality so it’s not hard for us to turn it up when we need to. We were use to the Lortel, which is much smaller than every single house we will be playing on the road, so we upped the size of somethings are monsters are huge. We added a lot more lighting – so I don’t think well have much problem turning the volume up on the whole thing.”
So if you could be any god who would you be?
“I would say Greek mythology is so messed up (giggling) and I think its from the trickle down effect so I would want to be Zeus and try to lead by example and maybe clean up some of the messed up Greek mythology. I would say Zeus but I would be a very progressive modern Zeus,” Chris McCarrell.
As the year races towards a close we can at least count on the new year bringing this tour to a city near you starting in January. For tour info and tickets head to The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical.
Kaos Blac
Kaosblac@comicattack.com
Twitter: kaosblac
