Netcong's The Growing Stage offers the world premiere of 'Boy Sees Flying Saucer' through March 25.
“Boy Sees Flying Saucer” — which is having its world premiere run at The Growing Stage – Children’s Theatre of N.J. through March 25 — is based on a true story. Or at least a partially true story maybe, most likely, kinda sorta.
Playwright Mike Czuba was inspired by his friend Brian Dorscht’s magical childhood memory.
“As I writer, I responded first to the unbelievability of it all: Brian sees, maybe, a flying saucer and then his possible encounter is blown up and everyone starts talking about,” Czuba said in an email interview from his home in Calgary, Canada. “The idea that someone could tell a story and have it be believed by everyone. there’s a danger and power in that. It also shows sometimes how much we want]]]] to believe something.”
The play’s originality helped Czuba win the Growing Stage’s 2017 New Play-Reading Festival. This production is the contest’s prize.
“There’s an imagination that’s so inherent in the story and it takes each of the kids and adults within it on their own adventure,” said Stephen L. Fredericks, Growing Stage’s founder and executive director. “It’s a family show, one that will remind the adults in the audience of a time when they allowed their imaginations to be free.”
While Czuba’s retelling of Dorscht’s story is a bit more theatrical than the original — it is a stage show, after all — at the core it is the same: A boy growing up in Small Town Anywhere circa 1967 tells his sister that a space ship swooped down and took his new bicycle, the same bike his father earlier told him to put in the garage. The sister tells a friend, who tells her father, and the story becomes the talk of the town, drawing media attention and excited tourists.
“In the late 60s, wonder of sci-fi was beginning to take hold throughout our culture,” Fredericks said. “We weren’t just thinking of ourselves but beyond and wondering if there might be something out there.”
Czuba met Dorscht in 2012. He’d seen Czuba’s “The Adventures of Don Marcos Sebastian Guevara Fantastico.” The play told the story of a revolutionary squirrel. (Dorscht died last year at age 62 from cancer. His family is expected to see the Growing Stage production.)
“I think he responded to how that play was a little different than the usual ‘kids’ shows and he commissioned me to write this crazy story he had,” Czuba said.
On a superficial level, Czuba said “Boy” seems very different from his other work, which includes historic plays and interdisciplinary performance pieces. Beneath the surfaces, however, there is a link.
“Ultimately all my work comes back to themes of identity, communication and what it means to be human,” he said. ” I also try … to layer in some humor and a good helping of ridiculous.”
In an age of “alternative facts,” is there a deeper message in “Boy Sees Flying Saucer”? Czuba said he makes a point to “avoid screaming messages at an audience.” The most important take-away should be a good time.
“I want the audience to have fun,” he said. “This is a ‘family’ show rather than just a kids show. There’s a lot for the kids to have fun with, and there’s a lot in the relationships and some of the humor for adults to really have fun with. That’s what Brian originally wanted, too, a family show, nothing too heavy-handed as far as a message, and above all else – fun.”
BOY SEES FLYING SAUCER
March 9-25
The Growing Stage — Children’s Theatre of N.J.
7 Ledgwood Ave., Netcong
Tickets: $ 15, available online at http://www.growingstage.com.
Natalie Pompilio is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia. She can be reached at nataliepompilio@yahoo.com. Find her on Twitter @nataliepompilio. Find NJ.com/Entertainment on Facebook.