Zipperface!!?!: The Hobo Musical

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Zipperface!!?!
It'll Be The Best Show Ever Made!
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Written by: Dave Rothstadt, Andy Wolf, and Jon Bershad
Directed by: Dave Rothstadt and Erika Basedow
Performed: Spring 2008
Venue: Scott Hall 135
Runtime: 2 hours
Genre: Musical,Black Comedy
2007-2008 Season
The Pillowman Zipperface Wacky Hijinks 2008


A.k.a. "Pillowface/Zipperman".

Zipperface!!?! is a stage adaptation of the film Zipperface (film). Written by Dave Rothstadt, Andy Wolf, and Jon Bershad, it was the second show of the 2008 spring semester.

The play revolves around a group of crazy hobos in a back alley of New Brunswick who decide to perform the tattered screenplay of Zipperface (found in a dumpster) to the audience which only they can see, thanks to the Soviet microchips implanted in their brains during the Cuban Robot Wars. Franklin, the play's narrator, used to be a troubadour around New Brunswick and injects the play with songs such as "Let's Put On A Terrible Play (Based On A Terrible Movie)", " So I Killed Another S&M Hooker Tonight", "Lisa Rider, I'll Ride You All Night", "What Are We Gonna Do (With All These Dead Prostitutes)", and "I Am Dead (So Am I)(So Am I)(So Am I)".

It is a satire on the current state of Broadway Musicals, when any major motion picture with a built in fan base can be lazily adapted into a musical by throwing songs in "where they don't belong" along with "monologues" and "broken fourth walls" to make the audience feel like they are participating in the film, but oh wait! It's theater! Wa Wa Waaaaa. (See: Legally Blond, Shrek The Musical, Billy Elliot, Xanadu,Young Frankenstein, Hairspray, Footloose, Saturday Night Fever, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Full Monty, The Wedding Singer) (also see: The Producers and Spamalot, but they're kind of good so...*shrug*) Zipperface!!?! is what happens when a musical is based on a terrible movie no one has ever seen.

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History

After watching the film in the spring of 2006, Rothstadt decided to adapt the movie for the stage. That fall, Julia Hebner stuck at a dead end job, painfully transcribed the entire film for him. Scared of the complexities of buying rights and of losing his mind/failing in school during the production of the play, Rothstadt decided to not actually take the next step and write the play. Instead, for about a year, he would just sing the songs and play the piano in Scott 135 while people tried to rehearse for other plays. However, early in the winter of 2007, after a marathon writing experience after watching CAP's production of Reefer Madness, he proposed half a script to the board who declared it as the second show of the Spring semester of 2008.

During the winter break, joined by Wolf and Bershad, the show became a ridiculously awesome script, influenced by the absurdity of such shows as The Theater at the End of Time and Sex: aka Weiners and Boobs, as well as the film Adaptation.

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Fun Facts

  • The show was a rousing success, with a total audience count of about 350 people ($$$) over the 4 performances, give or take a few. I'd like to see Cabaret Theatre pull that off!
  • The CAP E-Board constructed an intense marketing campaign which included writing "Who is Zipperface?" in chalk everywhere they could, confusing many.
  • At the door of the productions of Zipperface, CAP learned that no one came based on the expensive advertisement CAP had taken out in the Daily Targum.
  • When Andy Wolf rearranged the order of the names of the writers of the show on the second flyer (not pictured), he spelled Dave Rothstadt's name wrong (Rothsadt). Rothstadt did not notice, but now that he knows, can see nothing else. It's upsetting him a great deal- one might say it's making him extremely... sadt!!
  • While the musical is structured like a musical, the writers really didn't think anyone would have a hard time guessing who the killer was. However, thanks in no small part to a certain actor's excellent impersonation of another actor, many audience members were actually surprised by the final reveal. Following this discovery, the writers tweaked the script for the final performance to play upon this (including a new line for Scalia: "Damn, I though I was Zipperface!")
  • Someone (Matt Herron) had the brilliant idea during production to credit all of the actors in the play as portraying Zipperface and this was implemented in the programs.
  • Oh, and police arrested the Hobo Band, winning a Cappy award that year for Biggest Fuck Up
  • Most of the hobos and prostitutes in the show within the show were Mason Gross BFA's.
  • Zipperface!!?! was originally conceived as a scathing indictment of the Bush administration's implementation of and refusal to repeal the "No Child Left Behind" act, except instead of children being left behind, there are prostitutes being hacked to death with a machete.
  • Though jokingly referenced in the show's program, the team behind Zipperface will not write "Abe Lincoln's Puppy Farm." Instead, they are currently working on the even longer titled "Abe Lincoln: Space Lawyer & the Puppy Farm Beyond the Stars (A Glam Rock Musical)"
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Cast


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2009 NYC International Fringe Festival

In late 2008 and early 2009, the three writers behind the hobo musical reunited to create a new version of the hit show. The plan was to transform the script from what it was into something new; something people "other than our friends and family" would enjoy. They then submitted the script to the New York Musical Festival and the NYC International Fringe Festival (on which Dave and Jon had participated in the previous summer with America 20XX). They were rejected by NYMF (rumor has it that one reader thought it was the most outrageous script she'd ever seen submitted) but were joyously accepted into the Fringe Fest. The group decided to produce the show with whatever moneys they could scrounge up under the name RBW Comedy. With a brand new cast and crew, the show performed in NYC at the new Dixon Place theater on Chrystie St. with 5 dates between 8/15-8/30. Funnily Enough (funnily is not a word) CAP Alumnus Samantha Hancock was randomly assigned to sell tickets at the door for the show, while Cyriaque Lamar was specifically chosen by the guys to represent the show at the very same door. Every performance sold out in advance, and reviews were actually very good, good enough that the show was given an extended 4 performance run at the LEGENDARY Actors Playhouse from September 15-25 within the Fringe Encore series. Only 20 of the 201 shows were asked to participate. WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?!!!?!

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Cast

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Crew

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Links

Shawnna Woolridge's Mini-Documentary on Dave Rothstadt and Zipperface!!?! [1]

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