Show #2: Jurassic Parq The Broadway Musical

When I was in 9th grade in Alabama, my 60 year old history teacher -- Mrs. Stone, a devout Presbyterian -- told the class that she never believed that dinosaurs had ever existed until she took a trip to Arizona in her late 40s and saw giant dinosaur fossils being excavated.  Until that trip, she believed that dinosaurs had been a hoax created by scientists in a continuing effort to upset creationists and disprove the existence of God.


But, she couldn't deny dinosaurs' existence after seeing remnants of them up-close-and-personal -- and had to re-read the Bible to figure out which passages people must have overlooking that referred to dinosaurs roaming the earth.  For her, being able to believe in the existence of dinosaurs was a matter of re-positioning her faith about how, when and why God had created them.


Bless her heart, Mrs. Stone would have loved Jurassic Parq The Broadway Musical!  It's a hilarious re-imagining of the novel / blockbuster Spielberg film, re-worked -- with the addition of song and dance numbers -- and re-told through the voices and perspectives of the dinosaurs themselves who are trying to understand how and when they were created and why some members of this all-female dinosaur faction are suddenly growing male parts and getting their groove on in musical numbers like "Dick Fix."  


The gender-bending musical promises singing and dancing dinosaurs, and it delivers bigtime. There's T-Rexes; a baby Velociraptor, a Dilophosaurus...um....a Mime-a-saurus....a Pianosaurus....several Chorusasaurus members.  And competing for the role of leader of this pre-historic pack are the Velociraptor of Faith, a sort of preacher man figure, and her exiled twin sister, the Velociraptor of Science. 


There's also "Morgan Freeman" who narrates the tale!


The show is uber clever, laugh out-loud, and accomplishes a lot even on a low-budget (it is a part of NY International Fringe Festival Encore Series).  All-in-all Jurassic Parq was a delightful show #2 for my 365 shows in 365 days adventure.  


Next up for me tonight is show #3:  "Brief Encounter"!  More soon....