Jasper in Deadland
Opening Night: March 16, 2014
Closing: April 13, 2014
Theater: West End Theatre
ake a mythological thrill-ride through a hybrid underworld with 17-year-old Jasper, as he faces down demons, gods, and monsters in search of his best friend Agnes. With a high-octane score from Jonathan Larson Award-winning songwriter Ryan Scott Oliver, in collaboration with Tony Award nominee Hunter Foster, this exhilarating new musical questions what it means to die, and what it means to be truly alive.
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March 27, 2014
Hunter Foster and Ryan Scott Oliver put a contemporary and youthful spin on the Orpheus myth in Jasper in Deadland, a new musical that opened last night at the West End Theater in a Prospect Theater Company production. It’s an oftentimes clever revision to the tale of a man who travels to the underworld to rescue his beloved, that has been directed with flair by Brandon Ivie and features a terrific performance from Matt Doyle as the title character. Unfortunately, convoluted plotting and the incessant drive of Oliver’s score combine to make the show a less than satisfying journey.
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March 27, 2014
Jasper in Deadland is a wonderful musical reprise of the book written by Hunter Foster and Ryan Scott Oliver, with music and lyrics also written by Ryan Scott Oliver. Deadland is an astoundingly entertaining production which brings into question the meaning of life as a young man by the name of Jasper loses his best friend and goes through hell in a desperate search for her….literally! An adventure that captivated me from the very start through the outstanding cast to the array of theatrical elements makes this production one not to miss. The catchy tunes that made me want to join in and sing along, the unique stage effects that had me in awe of its originality and the flawless portrayal of each and every character all had me smiling from ear to ear with sheer excitement by the end of Deadland.
READ THE REVIEWMarch 27, 2014
Every so often there comes a musical that you know will begin to alter the face of musical theater. A show that others will try and try to recreate in order to cash in on its success. A show that when you walk out of the theater, you know you will be seeing theaters and schools all over the country producing that work for years to come. The newest to be added to that list is Ryan Scott Oliver and Hunter Foster’s Jasper in Deadland. Presented by Prospect Theater Company, Jasper in Deadland follows sixteen-year-old Jasper who journeys to the underworld to save his best friend Agnes. On his Orpheus-like journey, he encounters an assortment of wild character drawing inspiration from afterlife mythology, ranging from Greek to Norse, and discovers the true meaning of life and love.
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March 26, 2014
Sure, you’ve heard the phrase "loud enough to wake the dead," but have you ever seen it musicalized? If not, Jasper in Deadland, the new Prospect Theater Company musical at the West End Theater, has you covered. It’s not just that this show, by Ryan Scott Oliver (book, music, lyrics, and orchestrations) and Hunter Foster (book) is grossly overamplified (by sound designer Ed Chapman), to the point where lyrics are unintelligible when more than three people are singing at once. It’s that everything, from the writing to the direction (Brandon Ivie) to the choreography (Lorin Latarro), has the volume pegged at 13, regardless of whether that’s ever the right choice.
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March 26, 2014
For a three-headed hellhound with menacing fangs and green-glowing eyes, Cerberus can be surprisingly accommodating. Guarding the gates of Deadland, he decides against eating Jasper, a living teenager seeking admission to the underworld, where he’s determined to find his freshly dead best friend. “You may enter,” Cerberus tells Jasper, and this is good news for us, too. In Jasper in Deadland, Ryan Scott Oliver and Hunter Foster’s playful, silly-smart, new musical at the West End Theater, the afterlife is a multi-culti mash-up of myth and magic, with the occasional dash of Christian symbolism for flavor.
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