MOLINE, ILLINOIS (August 2, 2022) — “Ride the Cyclone” is here. The area premiere of the quirky musical takes a bow on August 11 at the downtown Moline theatre. “In this hilarious and outlandish story, the lives of six teenagers from a Canadian chamber choir are cut short in a freak accident aboard a roller-coaster. When they awake in limbo, a mechanical fortune-teller invites each to tell a story to win a prize like no other — the chance to return to life.”
The show is directed and choreographed by Shelley Cooper; Music Direction by Katie Griswold; Production design by Lora Adams; specialty painting by Sara Nicole Wegener and Tom Vaccaro; Stage management by Synth Gonzalez; and lighting design by Roger Pavey. The cast includes Taylor Lynn as Ocean; Jacqueline Isaacson as Jane Doe; Eli Bates as Noel; Brandon Smith as Mischa; Ryan Hurdle as Ricky; Abby Bastian as Constance; and Doug Kutzli as Karnak.
The world premiere production took place in Victoria, British Columbia at Atomic Vaudeville in 2008, Toronto in 2011 and toured Western Canada in 2013 winning numerous awards in the process.
The American premiere took place at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Directed by the late Rachel Rockwell, the production opened in September 2015. Rockwell again directed the show Off-Broadway in 2016. Reviewers said "this delightfully weird and just plain delightful show. . . will provide the kind of thrills we look for in all musical comedies, however outlandish their subject matter: An engaging and varied score, knocked out of the park by a superlative cast, and a supremely witty book."
“I have wanted to do this show for quite a while and one night while Shelley was performing LaDivina at The Black Box I happened to say ‘There’s this show I want to do that no one has heard of,’ and Shelley asked what it was called, and I told her “Ride the Cyclone,’ and she said ‘I love that show. I’ll direct it if you want.’ And that’s how the premiere of ‘Ride the Cyclone’ came to the Black Box Theatre,” said Adams, who is the co-founder and Artistic Director for the theatre.
Tickets are available at theblackboxtheatre or at the door. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 7:30PM, and Sunday at 2PM. Thursday $13 and all other performances $16.
