Team StarKid, the performing musical troupe that rose to fame with its production of A Very Potter Musical, launched a KickStarter for its newest musical production: Twisted: The Untold Story of a Royal Visier.
The parody musical will be based on Disney’s animated classic (and my personal favorite animated film) Aladdin. Twisted will be much like Wicked in that its a retelling of a beloved story from the villain’s point of view. For those who aren’t familiar with Wicked, Wicked tells the story of Elphaba–the Wicked Witch of the West–and how she became “wicked.” Likewise, Twisted will tell the tale of Jafar–the royal vizier to the Sultan of Agrabah–and how he became “twisted.” In a reversal of roles, Jafar will be the protagonist and everyone’s favorite street rat, Aladdin, will be the antagonist (remember, this is from Jafar’s point of view, after all).
The title of the production references one of Jasmine’s infamous lines: “And your beard is so…twisted.” Pretty clever title as it is a throwback to the original film as well as is in the same titling vein as Wicked.
Originally, the company had a minimum goal of raising $30,000, but it reached that goal within 2 hours! That goal would allow the troupe to create a bare-bones production; however, the ultimate goal is to raise $180,000, which would provide the highest quality costumes, actors and overall production. (As of this publication, StarKid has already raised $128,000 in just 11 days). There’s no doubt that Team StarKid will reach and surpass its $180K goal, which means an even higher quality production for fans!
Twisted is created by StarKid founders and writers Nick Lang, Matt Lang, and Eric Kahn Gale with music by AJ Holmes and lyrics by Kaley McMahon. Notably missing is StarKid’s most famous member, Darren Criss, who wrote and composed songs for the Very Potter productions as well as Starship. However, Criss has been absent from StarKid for quite a while now (with the exception of A Very Potter Senior Year) since he now has a lead role on Glee.
Typically, Team StarKid hasn’t charged for its shows as it offers free tickets to patrons and releases the shows on YouTube for free. However, the Lang’s mentioned that recent productions (specifically Holy Musical B@man!) cost over $100,000 to produce and were made at a lost. While StarKid does sell albums, these sales aren’t enough to turn a profit. So, in order to keep providing its fans with great shows, it has reached out via Kickstarter to allow its fans to contribute. Looks like it’s working! I’m personally happy to see the outpouring of support to StarKid, the creators deserve to be compensated for all their hard work that brings happiness and laughter to a lot of people.
Team StarKid has received a massive following over the years due to its various, wildly successful web series and musicals. All of expertly written and composed, so it’s no question that Twisted will be as hilarious as its previous offerings. Its definitely something that Disney, animation and Aladdin fans will want to check out!
The Kickstarter closes April 21, 2013. So if you want to contribute to the production of Twisted, head over to the Kickstarter page. The page also features a longer video explanation from the creators about how they came up with the idea.
Check out the teaser trailer below!
What are you most excited to see in Twisted?
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