It’s Theatre Thursday again and today’s show is another from Team StarKid. Black Friday is a horror-comedy musical the ace team produced and staged in 2019 at the Hudson Theatre. This addition to their growing roster of plays is continuing to raise their profile as a theatre company. Their latest production further affirms that with each new production, Team StarKid just gets better and better. Black Friday is bigger, funnier, cleverer, and more ambitious than anything they’ve come up with so far (and that’s not to discredit their past plays). It’s questionable if they’ll be able to top this one.
Black Friday is a horror-comedy musical the ace team produced and staged in 2019 at the Hudson Theatre.
To recap, Team StarKid is a musical theatre company that was founded in 2009. They write and produce their own productions, with all original music as well. Black Friday is one of their newest additions, a musical about an evil doll of which the people of the community of Hachetfield are lining up to buy at their local mall. The townies are initially unaware of the Tickle-Me Wiggly’s dark presence until Lex, Tom, and Becky notice that the demand for the new toy is literally driving people into insanity. Black Friday quickly becomes a chaotic fight for survival, a beautiful mess that is loaded with humorously mature themes and plenty of musical numbers.
Team StarKid ups the ante with Black Friday in every area of production. Their stage tech/FX is abundant and cued with experience. The set was not a priority, but in watching the show it will be easy to see why that’s the case. The camera work for the recording has obviously improved from having now done it numerous times before. The music, written by Jeff Blim, continues to impress as the lyrics are intelligent and as usual, hysterical. The cast is fair sized with multiple actors playing more than one part, all able to sing and accommodate the laughable songs and the absurdity of the dialogue. Nick and Matt Lang wrote the script to be just as profanely farcical as the company’s previous shows and the actors nail the timing in a near flawless fashion. On the downside, the show can feel long at times and there is a lot happening scene to scene. In fairness to the Lang’s writing however, no event or character feels out of place and everything makes sense within the confines of the show’s structure. With Black Friday, the good still far outweighs the bad.
Team StarKid isn’t slowing down, they’re not dropping the ball, and they’re certainly not taking any steps back. There’s still a long way to go before this company becomes an unstoppable force, but they are definitely on track to solidifying a reputation as a premier theatre troupe. Black Friday is a musical that contributes to this, and it delivers in more ways than one. The show is currently free, which is customary for Team StarKid once they’ve concluded their stage run. Head on over to their YouTube page for this and many more of their distinguished plays.
