Bat Boy
“Everything anyone needs for a great night of theater: sex, laughs, music, drama and
dead cows. . . Thrilling, scary, funny and thought-provoking.”
– Deanna Jent, Riverfront Times
"So weird. So smart. So shocking. So entertaining."
– Judith Newmark, St. Louis Post Dispatch
New Line's fifteenth anniversary season continued with the return of the funniest, hottest off-Broadway show in years, the outrageous, shocking, deliciously daffy rock musical BAT BOY THE MUSICAL, by Keythe Farley, Brian Flemming, and Laurence O'Keefe. Ripped from the headlines (okay, the headlines of the Weekly World News), this bizarre tale of a tender-hearted half-boy-half-bat found in a rural West Virginia cave is like nothing you've ever seen.
In 1992, the Weekly World News described the bat child this way: "Discovered in a cave in Hope Falls, West Virginia, this half-bat has escaped from captivity and is currently at large. He can be identified by large, pointy ears and oversized eyes that make him profoundly sensitive to sound and light. The creature has reportedly attacked at least 3 people with his razor-sharp fangs and should be considered extremely dangerous." Since then he has become a national hero and he even went to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban (where his instincts were particularly useful in those caves). Now, finally, his real story can be told. The musical was developed at the Directors Company in Los Angeles during two workshops in 1999 and 2000. L.A.’s Actor’s Gang theatre then produced the world premiere and the cast went on to open it at the Union Square Theatre in New York in March 2001.
In between the howls of laughter, Bat Boy the Musical tackles American prejudice, the fierceness of modern religion, genetic engineering, inter-species sex, and lots more. Part Little Shop of Horrors, part Les Misérables, part Dracula, part Annie 2 (okay, we're kidding about that last one), this is a masterpiece of issue-strewn, big-hearted, comic horror that will have you leaving the lights on at night and gnawing on your loved ones during the day.
Unless, of course, you already do that. We don't want to know.
Most of the cast from New Line's 2003 sold-out production returned, including Todd Schaefer as the Bat Boy, Deborah Sharn, April Lindsey, Stephanie Brown, Brian Claussen, Nick Kelly, Jeffrey Pruett, plus three new actors to the show, Matthew Korinko, Aaron Allen, and Christine Brooks. Check out some candid rehearsal photos.
Want to explore more? We recommend:
The original off-Broadway cast album of Bat Boy the Musical and the script of Bat Boy
The official Bat Boy website
An analysis of Bat Boy by New Line artistic director Scott Miller
The official Weekly World News website or go straight to their index of actual articles about Bat Boy or to free Bat Boy wallpapers and icons
The Weekly World News comic strip, The Adventures of Bat Boy
An excellent Washington Post article about the Weekly World News and the real Bat Boy
The book Bat Boy Lives, a collection of the greatest hits of The Weekly World News, including all the Bat Boy stories
The book WEEKLY WORLD NEWS: 12 Astounding True Stories from America's Favorite Tabloid, a collection of magnetic postcards of the infamous tabloid's stories, including one of the original Bat Boy front pages
Articles on bat varieties in West Virginia, inter-species cross-breeding, and genetic engineering
The Bat Conservation International website and the Basically Bats website
The very cool, new American Bats postage stamps
The official website for Nothing So Strange, the new film written by Bat Boy co-author Brian Flemming (and featuring Bat Boy's other creators Keythe Farley and Larry O'Keefe) about the cover-up of the 1999 assassination of Bill Gates