Performances for "Bunkerville" will take place at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 20-22 and 24-28 and at 2:30 p.m Oct. 22 and 28. Tickets can be purchased online and cost $12 for seniors and Ball State students and faculty, $15 for general admission and $10 for children.
The Department of Theatre and Dance has been working with the musical “Bunkerville” since 2016, and the show will finally open at 7:30 p.m. Friday in Strother Studio Theatre.
“Bunkerville" is a post-apocalyptic musical centered around a character named Steve who ventures outside the underground city of Bunkerville and into a world that has become a wasteland in the 200 years after a nuclear holocaust.
Michael Worcel, the choreographer for “Bunkerville,” said the musical is a satire “in the style of contemporary pop rock.”
“Even though it’s presented in a crazy comedic style, the post-apocalyptic story presents questions of whether or not society can learn by its tragic mistakes or will repeat them, and hints at finding acceptance for all,” Worcel said.
After being submitted to the DISCOVERY New Theatre Festival to be workshopped and judged in the summer of 2016, “Bunkerville” was chosen to be included in this fall’s season of performances at Ball State.
“It was one of the top four entries that came out of it,” said Michael Elliott, musical director for the musical. “‘Bunkerville’ was chosen from those four by a panel for [the department] to continue to develop, and then we decided to put it into our season for this fall.”
At the end of the 2017 spring semester, auditions for “Bunkerville” took place. Martin Tebo, a sophomore acting major who plays a mutant named Greg, said that he was particularly interested in auditioning for the musical because it was new.
“The biggest thing for me was that it was a new work, which is something that I’m personally very passionate about,” Tebo said. “That’s why I chose this program. I came all the way from Portland, Oregon, to come study acting here because of all the new work that we do.”
Rehearsals for “Bunkerville” began around Labor Day weekend and have evolved from working through the musical’s score during the first week of rehearsals to dress rehearsals with full run-throughs in the days leading up to opening night. The show features students ranging from sophomores to seniors, which Tebo said has allowed for the rehearsal process to be very collaborative.
“You work with everyone from different levels,” Tebo said. “These people have been through different levels of training, and so we’re all coming together and lifting each other up and bringing in new ideas.”
Working on such a new show presents challenges that aren’t typically faced when producing a play, such as adapting the script and music.
“It’s been an interesting process to develop something that has no precedent and to just kind of create it,” Elliott said. “There has been collaboration with the students experimenting and trying different things on stage.”
The process in which Worcel approached creating choreography for this show was also different from what he would do for a show that has already been performed multiple times. First, Worcel said he met with the director and musical director to discuss style and concepts.
“I requested that I observe blocking rehearsals scene by scene and then set movement after I saw where they were going with it,” Worcel said. “Usually, dance and music are two of the first elements set in rehearsal.”
The choreography varies throughout the three groups of characters in “Bunkerville”: the citizens, mutants and cultists. Each group must learn different choreography to make sure they are accurate to the style and time period of the musical.
The actors have also had to learn to work with music that is “deceptively difficult in its complexity,” Elliott said, and it’s important for them to work outside of rehearsals to learn as much as they can.
“It just sounds like a rock concert, but it’s a lot of meter changes, a lot of fast lyrics, and they’re wordy songs,” Elliott said. “They’ve really had to put in a lot of their own good time to get that stuff down so that when we get into the rehearsal room, we can actually rehearse things and not just have to teach it all.”
While putting the musical together has been an in-depth process, Elliott said the students’ hard work, from acting to designing, has been incredible.
“The actors have been wonderful to work with,” Elliott said. “It’s been one of the most fun rehearsal processes I’ve ever been involved with since I’ve been here. As challenging as it has been, it’s also been a lot of fun.”
Contact Nicole Thomas with comments at nrthomas3@bsu.edu.
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