Happy Monday and welcome back to another Musical Monday! Today’s musical is a musical franchise consisting of three stage musicals, two seasons of a musical web series and a short film. Brought to you by my spring break road trip musical search, this week is all about Team StarKid’s horror comedy Hatchetfield musicals.
Plot
The series takes place in the fictitious island town of Hatchetfield, set in writers Nick and Matt Lang’s college state of Michigan. Each stage musical follows a classic horror movie format. “The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals,” first staged in 2018, is an alien invasion/body snatchers horror. “Black Friday,” staged in 2019, is a capitalism/consumerism commentary musical. The final of the stage shows, “Nerdy Prudes Must Die,” staged in 2023, is a teen slasher. The musicals all function as standalone shows, with a few jokes intended for fans of the entire franchise.
The Hatchetfield series is a multiverse — tied together by an overarching setting and antagonists. The antagonists of the series are the Lords in Black, eldritch beings that control a non-dimensional space called the Black and White. The Lords in Black are ruled by the oldest brother, Wiggly— short for Wiggog Y’rath— and consists of Bliklotep (Blinky), T’noy Karaxis (Tinky), Pokotho (Pokey) and Nibblenephim (Nibbly). Also in the Black and White is the Lords’ sister, Webby, known as the Queen in White. Webby serves as an ally to one of the series’ protagonists and is against her brothers’ treachery.
Show History
Though the universe opened in 2018 with “The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals,” the first conceptualized show for the franchise was “Nerdy Prudes Must Die,” the last of the stage shows. All three shows were written by brothers Nick and Matt Lang — who have written on every StarKid musical to date. The shows were all directed by Nick Lang, who has directed a vast majority of StarKid shows. The series has original music by Jeff Blim, who appears in every installment of the franchise other than “NPMD.” “TGWDLM” and “Black Friday” feature choreography by James Tolbert, while “NPMD” was choreographed by Lauren Lopez, who contributed additional choreography to “TGWDLM.”
Each Hatchetfield stage musical took place in Los Angeles and were crowdfunded by StarKid fans, before being uploaded to YouTube for free, months after the shows closed. During the Covid-19 pandemic, when “NPMD” was originally slated to take place, the company instead released two seasons of the web series “Nightmare Time,” consisting of 12 one-act musicals set in the universe of the shows and expanding on the universe’s lore, including a proper introduction to the Lords in Black.
The Hatchetfield series features an ensemble cast, with Joey Richter, Jon Matteson, Corey Dorris and Lauren Lopez the only actors to appear in every Hatchetfield property.
Personal History
My personal history with the Hatchetfield series goes back to 2017, before any shows hit the stage. I first became acquainted with StarKid through a Thomas Sanders video, which prompted me to watch StarKid’s “Holy Musical B@man!” After that, I became a casual StarKid fan. Then, when “TGWDLM” was released, I watched it and became hooked. From then on, StarKid has been one of my favorite theatre niche interests. I donated to the crowdfunding campaigns for both “Black Friday” — which was paired in funding with other parts of the StarKid tenth anniversary celebration — and “Nerdy Prudes Must Die.”
I’ve watched every Hatchetfield property multiple times over, but the one with the fondest place in my heart is “Nerdy Prudes Must Die.” I’ve seen StarKid live three times, with “NPMD” being the second instance. During the spring break of my sophomore year, I road-tripped to Los Angeles with my two best friends, Spencer and Gracie, and attended the closing night of “NPMD.” Not only was it amazing to experience StarKid live with my closest friends, but “NPMD” is perhaps one of my favorite shows I have seen live.
A lot of my fond memories are associated with the Hatchetfield universe, including a time my junior year of high school where I got to interview “TGWDLM” leading man Jon Matteson for a school project. My junior year of college, I attended a theatre workshop with Mariah Rose Faith Casillas and Angela Giarratana, and received direct coaching from both of them.
Favorite Songs
I say this every time, but the Hatchetfield series might be the hardest Musical Monday to choose favorite songs for. With so many different properties to choose from, it’s hard to determine which are my favorites. I’ve decided to select one song from each installment of the franchise, going in chronological order.
My favorite song from “TGWDLM” is “Let it Out,” the eleventh hour song where main character Paul Matthews faces off against the musical’s big bad — a musical alien apocalypse known as the apotheosis. As he faces off against the musical doppelgangers of his closest friends, he finally starts to succumb to the influence of Pokey. It’s my favorite song because of how it shows off Matteson’s talent. “TGWDLM” was his StarKid debut. He went the first act and a half of the show without singing, before debuting with one of the most vocally complex songs of the entire score.
In “Black Friday,” my favorite song is the titular “Black Friday,” sung as Angela Giarratana’s Lex Foster faces impending death and reflects on her short life with anger and despair. The reason it’s my favorite is entirely down to Giarratana’s performance, which is a standout in a show full of talented cast members. She sells Lex’s emotions so well I felt them as if they were my own, and couldn’t help but be in awe of her talent.
After “Black Friday” came “Nightmare Time” — the first season of the company’s Covid-web series. My favorite song in “Nightmare Time” is the theme song, purely because of how fun it is to listen to.
My favorite song from “Nightmare Time 2” is “Run Away With Me,” sung by Kim Whalen’s Miss Holloway —- an expert on the Black and White — who sacrifices her happiness time and again to save the world. In “Run Away With Me,” she is singing to prevent a “Killer Track” from causing mass death and destruction. But really, she is singing a ballad to her doomed love, social worker Duke Keane, played by Whalen’s real-life husband Curt Mega. The song is beautifully tragic, and Whalen has one of the best voices of any StarKid member. To add to the tragedy, the Lang brothers have confirmed that in all of the multiverses revolving around Hatchetfield, Duke and Miss Holloway will never have a happy ending.
The hardest of the Hatchetfield shows to pick a favorite song from is “NPMD,” perhaps because of my experience seeing it live. However, that experience also led me to select “The Summoning” as my favorite. When main characters Peter Spankoffski, Stephanie Lauter and Grace Chasity (played by Richter, Casillas and Giarratana, respectively) are instructed to summon the Lords in Black to prevent the ghost of their former bully from killing them, we are treated to this upbeat but frightening song performed by Matteson as Wiggly, Whalen as Nibbly, Corey Dorris as Pokey, Curt Mega as Tinky and Lopez as Blinky. The memory of watching my friend Spencer lose his mind over this song was enough to cement it as my favorite from this show.
Finally, the short film “Workin’ Boys” features a song called “It Takes Balls,” sung by the women of the Hatchetfield franchise as an in-universe song in a musical written by composer Jeff Blim’s character Henry Hidgens. It’s a slightly meta moment, and the song is tons of fun.
Favorite Fact
Much like the songs, there are a crazy amount of facts about the Hatchetfield universe. However, it was easy to find my favorite of them.
The franchise’s central couple, Paul Matthews and Emma Perkins, are the only characters to appear in all three Hatchetfield stage shows. Paul and Emma, dubbed “Paulkins” by fans, are canonically fated to find each other in every universe — though they are not guaranteed to get a happy ending.
Author: Tessa Cheshire
Photos courtesy of Team Starkid
Editors: Anna Mower and Heather Turner
arts@suunews.net
