A brand new musical holiday awaits you this month at "The Greatest Pirate Holiday Spectacularrr!" with a limited engagement from December 20 through January 3.
Join the crew of the Riley Rose as they attempt to perform one of the greatest holiday classics,” A Christmas Carol.” However, when all the plot points in their prologue are covered in runny ink, it’s up to you to fill in the blanks. You’ll laugh out loud as these pirates-turned-players weave your suggestions into songs, scenes and more in this madcap, improvised musicals.
This show has gotten rave reviews, including the New York Times, which had this to say about their previous show, "The Greatest Pirate Story Never Told":
“An hourlong family musical written by Christopher Leidenfrost, with audience help, it features a motley band of brigands — played by Risa Petrone and, above from left, David Anthony, Rebeca Diaz and Kevin Maphis (Mr. Maphis alternates in a role with Daniel Pivovar) — under the command of Capt. Henry Martin (Mr. Leidenfrost). The storm-tossed pirates encounter a sea witch, Sa’almanella, who must have a weakness for theater: Having propelled them into the Manhattan of the future, she won’t release their treasure until they perform a show.
Sa’almanella has given the pirates a prologue, but when squid ink obscures some of the words, they call on the children attending. The interaction is reminiscent of the game Mad Libs, in which one player asks the other for adjectives, nouns, verbs and other parts of speech to fill in the blanks in a story the respondent can’t see. Here, everyone can view the prologue on a backdrop, but the results are just as comic. Recently, young theatergoers decided that the ship was made of impenetrable pretzels, that the pirates were stealing cats, that the captain’s love interest was a vampire, and that, in one scene, they were covered in bees. The pirates even called two eager volunteers onstage to decide a plot point with Rock Paper Scissors.
Directed by Rick Leidenfrost-Wilson, Mr. Leidenfrost’s husband, the actors are uncannily adept at improvising, even when having to infuse a love ballad with bloodthirsty lyrics or work feline behavior into a sea chantey. Mr. Leidenfrost has given the action enough structure so that young audience members can expect both a mutiny and a trial (the sentence at the show I saw: death by cat scratch), and enough sophistication (a little spoofing of “The Pirates of Penzance”) to keep adults amused, too.
As for the pirates, they don’t seem to quite escape the witch’s curse. But you can’t feel sorry for them: Better to tread the boards than to walk the plank.”
Will five pirates, three ghosts, a bumbling Sea Witch and Charles Dickens himself be able to tell the tale? Find out at “The Greatest Pirate Holiday Spectacular!!!”
This is a limited off-Broadway engagement with only ten performances, running December 20 through January 3, 2015, at the Snapple Theater Center, 210 W. 50th Street (at Broadway) in New York City.
The Snapple Theater offers a limited amount of front-row (practically on-stage) which also come with a free bandana – although there are no bad seats in the house.
Click here for more information or to purchase tickets.