“We Are Out There” a prelude to a new musical coming to CST written by Julia W. Rath

“We Are Out There: The True Story of How They Are Out There” is a digital prologue to the upcoming musical “It Came from Outer Space: A New Musical”, to be featured this coming fall at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier. Produced in association with Universal Theatrical Group, this forty-minute taste of the future production is based on the alleged 1947 UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico, as well as on the 1953 black-and-white science fiction horror film “It Came from Outer Space” by Universal Pictures, that takes place in Sand Rock, Arizona. In the movie, astronomer John Putnam (Christopher Kale Jones) finds what might have been space rocks from the tail of a comet, and the rest follows from there.

Created by Joe Kinosian, Kellen Blair, and Daniel Schloss, this video production was probably a lot of fun to put together while in isolation in one’s home during COVID—and a lot of this is very cleverly done and creative. “We Are Out There” makes us wonder if extraterrestrials are actually present on earth and a threat to human existence. In support of this theme, Kinosian and Blair have created exceptional music and lyrics, especially the songs that Jones melodifies with his phenomenal singing voice. Other notables include Jaye Ladymore, who plays John’s wife Ellen Fields Putnam; and Alex Goodrich, who plays the absurd Sheriff Matt Warren; plus Cher Álvarez as Sunny; and E. Faye Butler as Coral. Kinosian plays all the other roles as needed.

Actors are arrayed in their individual Zoom boxes in this absurd discombobulation of styles, thanks to director and creative consultant Laura Braza. This, plus cinema, animation, and some intentionally bad editing on top of an intentionally preposterous storyline, creates a farcical and fluffy piece that’s imaginative and whimsical. Are the exaggerations and contrapositions fun, or overdone, or just plain weird? Is this video truly about space and space aliens—and whether the aliens are actually living among us? Or is the idea behind this prologue just spacey and sappy and all over the place?

Despite some uneven cinematography, the production captivates us with touching animation and glorious music of the spheres. Music director Jermaine Hill, music recording producer Carey Deadman, and orchestrator Macy Schmidt have gone all out in this performance, and likewise instrumentalists Ethan Deppe, Mike Matlock, Sean McNeely, and Celia Villacres do a stellar job. The audio shifts a bit when song numbers are inserted into the finished piece, but most of the time, the sound quality is out-of-this-world, due to the recording engineer Crystal Recorders, of Lombard, Illinois.

The show asks all sorts of profound questions about the place of human beings in the universe so as to make their profundity seem idiotic. As the story descends into absurdity or—as the sheriff calls it—stupidity, the intentional downward spiral is simultaneously over-the-top, in left field, over the moon, and out-of-sight. The question of whether this show is good or not is a moot point, because this article is not meant to be a review. The current video is simply a sophisticated advance piece for the main show—that is, the far-fetched science fiction musical—to take place this coming October. In fact, during the course of the prologue, we witness the end of the humankind as we know it, but do we really care? Have we as human beings earned the right to survive when a “wannabe cowboy” argues with a radio and shoots the voice of God (a/k/a Gordax)? And then we’re all gone–caput—or at least, left to our own devices. Yes, this bizarre performance gives us something to think about, but it’s hard to know exactly what. Will we ever know for certain who is and who is not an alien among us? Maybe all of us are alien imposters after all. Maybe we don’t know what’s in store for the universe once we as a species no longer survive. Maybe we’re all currently living in the afterlife. Maybe we’re all bits of stardust again. We don’t know what happens after the end… except that it’s the end of this show. The next show, to begin in the fall, will have its own end too.

“We Are Out There: The True Story of How They Are Out There” is available on ChicagoSHAKES Stream, via the Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s website https://www.chicagoshakes.com/plays_and_events/explore_season/we_are_out_there. Streaming is available on demand through June 20, 2021.

Digital tickets are $25 each.

For more information about other performances being featured by the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, please go to https://www.chicagoshakes.com/.

To donate to the Chicago Shakespeare Theater to support this and other productions, text “DONATE” to 312-667-3997 or visit https://chicagoshakes.com/donate.