The poster for A Roadkill Opera, a documentary feature film which is slated for public screenings in 2024. The poster has four major components: a medallion logo, a tagline, a photo, and the film credits. The medallion logo has a scalloped golden ring around the outside, with a black ring and golden text in the ring that reads “Music from 1804. Action set in 1988. Paer. Parker. Dokken.” Also set in the black ring are five skulls, rendered in red with gold outlines. The center of the medallion logo has red background, with pinkish tire tread marks running diagonally across it, and large letterpress letters in black with gold outlines that read “A Roadkill Opera.” Below the medallion logo is the second component of the poster, the movie tagline, which reads “There is comedy in truth.” The third component of the poster is a photo of three cast members on the set of the show, interacting with a large plush llama. The fourth component of the poster is the text showing credits at the bottom. It reads “Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia & Roadkill On A Stick Frozen Foods Publishing present A Roadkill Opera. Music by Ferdinando Paer. Written & edited by Stephan Alexander Parker. Original stage productions directed by music director & conductor Maestro Jeffrey Dokken. Starring Christopher Dews. Laura Wehrmeyer. David Timpane. Larry Boggs. Alan Naylor. Kelly Curtin. Alex Miletich IV. Shaina Martinez. Ed Bachtel. Louise Gignoux. Dave Rohrer. Holly Danner. A Stephan Alexander Parker film.”
A Roadkill Opera is a mashup of a backstage screwball comedy set in 1988 Wyoming with music from Ferdinando Paer’s 1804 opera Leonora. It tells the story of the hour before the lights go up on the first professional gig for an amateur comedy improv troupe–the Roadkill On A Stick Frozen Foods Theatre Company–at the legendary Silver Dollar Bar in the Wort Hotel in Jackson Hole. During that hour, they find out their showroom will be torn down after their run. Hilarity ensues.
This music documentary combines footage from A Roadkill Opera‘s 2016 live shows at the James Lee Community Theater in Falls Church, Virginia, and the Mead Theatre Lab at Flashpoint in Washington, DC; a brief segment from an Artomatic 2012 workshop in Crystal City, Virginia; and excerpts from the 1988 and 1992 Jackson Hole comedy revues by the Roadkill On A Stick Frozen Foods Theatre Company. It features the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia’s fully staged performances.
With action set in the 1980s, the over-the-top production as chronicled employs presentational and naturalistic theatrics; borrows tropes from Sherlock Holmes, the Marx Brothers, vaudeville, silent movies, and Monty Python’s Flying Circus; and nods to King Kong, Marie Antoinette, and the Dead End Kids/Bowery Boys. Works by Weird Al Yankovic and PDQ Bach belong on the same playlist as the soundtrack to A Roadkill Opera.
