THEATER: The Great American Trailer Park Musical

State College Community Theatre’s Boal Barn is definitely “trashy” this week. THE GREAT AMERICAN TRAILER PARK MUSICAL is responsible for bringing the residents of the Armadillo Acres Trailer Park to our town and with them comes adultery, road kill, strippers, disco, agoraphobia, cut-off jeans, and extremely high heels. As quoted in the play program, “everything a musical should be”.

Photo courtesy of Drew Frank, Meadow Lane Photography

The characters (and some of them really are characters) are much more important than the plot. The plot is the simple old story of the unhappy husband and the new girl in the trailer park who makes her living as a professional stripper and petty thief. Add a wife who suffers from agoraphobic since her son had been kidnapped, a Magic Marker-sniffing ex-boyfriend, and a Greek chorus, called the Girls, consisting of three self proclaimed “bad-asses”.

The action is evenly distributed through the cast giving each member a chance for some good solo work. Jackie Gianico, Allen Boyd, Rachel Ruhl, Emido M. Krupa, Sandi Rockwell, Courtney Wozetek, and Lacee McCann were all in excellent voice and had some very impressive moves.

After the show I asked Ms Rockwell how it felt to go from playing a nun to playing the manager of a place like the Armadillo Trailer Park. “Great fun,” she said. “The part is trashy and FUN.” The word “trashy” seemed to come up a lot.

Mr. Krupa told me that he is a method actor and had spent two months practicing by sniffing Magic Markers. His part was so over the top, that I almost believed him.

This is a very funny show, but as their ads state, audience discretion is suggested. The language and subject material may not be for everyone. The cast carries it all off well, but, as you may have noted, the term “trashy” does keep being mentioned.

My one problem was with the sound. Too many lines were lost either because of the sound system or the band being too loud during the musical numbers. Some of us hate to miss good trash talk.

THE GREAT AMERICAN TRAILER PARK MUSICAL will be at the Boal Barn in Boalsburg until April the 28th.

Neil Simon’s Rumors will be State College Community Theatre’s next production. It will run May 15-19 and 22-26 at the Boal Barn. This is one of my favorite Neil Simon shows and I am eager see what they do with it.

Pictures of the production, taken by Drew Frank of Meadow Lane Photography, can be seen at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.439723646041835.119409.118844971463039&type=3.