The Great American Trailer Park Musical
Theater West End
Book by Betsy Kelso
Music and Lyrics by David Nehls
Directed by Derek Critzer
Musical Director David Foust
Starring Sara Jones, Molly Schoolmeester, and Robb Ross
Sanford, FL
Small town life goes on every day, and at the trailer park the denizens go to their crappy jobs and drink their cheap beer and enjoy gossip just like the well-to-do. We’re up in Starke, Florida. Norbert (Ross) works the toll plaza for a job, and he wants to get his agoraphobic wife Jeannie (Jones) out of the trailer and off to the ice capades in Jacksonville. That is, until a new exotic dancer Pippi (Schoolmeester) show up at the “The Litter Box Show Palace” occasionally referred to a “A Gentlemen’s Club.” Well, it’s your basic redneck lover triangle with a snarky chorus singing us through this marital crisis. But just as it appears safe to visit the 7-11 again, Pippi’s semi-ex-boyfriend Duke (Joshua Oliveras) shows up, ready to tear apart anyone she’s “cheated” with. He’s a real terror…
These folks may be poor and down and out, but they can sure deliver the punch lines. Ross’s Norbert anchors the show, and while he’s the cause of most of the trouble, he’s also the straight man allowing who allows the women bounce off of him. Jones’s agoraphobic house frau is shocked by everything, and even though she’s outraged by Norbert’s fling, she still gets up the gumption to stick with him and even take him up on this ice capades tickets. Pippi knows how to manipulate men, but not quite to the point they stick with her. When her ex-boyfriend shows up, he steals the show. Duke is larger than larger than life, and his devotion to whippets and any other chemical he can keep down fire up his performance like injecting nitrous into a Prius. Our chorus supports and disapproves of everyone equally. There’s the snarky Linoleum (Janine Klein,) the naïve Pickles (Anna Olivia Banks) and the loud mouth Betty (Ashley Wilcox). This is a show about your neighbors or maybe even about you. And you are funnier that might imagine. Florida: love it or hate it, but you know deep down we do Florida Man better than any other state out there. This show is the biggest hoot of the year!
