FREE! on YouTube: Roadkill!!! Greatest Hits! A Roadkill Opera MOVIE

August 17, 2025UncategorizedStephan Alexander Parker

After a successful in-person premiere at Cult Classic Brewing in June 2025, the full 73-minute movie had a FREE YouTube streaming premiere Sunday, August 31, 2025

Stream it now!

Extras: Trailers, out-takes, etc. for Roadkill!!! Greatest Hits! A Roadkill Opera Movie

About the Movie

Roadkill!!! Greatest Hits! A Roadkill Opera Movie is a mashup of a backstage, screwball comedy set in 1988 Wyoming with music from Ferdinando Paer’s 1804 opera Leonora. It tells the true story of the the hour before the lights go up on the first professional gig for an amateur sketch 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 movie is essentially a demo to encourage live performances of music from Ferdinando Paer’s 1804 opera Leonora. And to tell the story of a small-time comedy troupe along the way.

It is made from live performances in October 2016, January 2016, June 2012, March 1992, and August 1988, along with tracks from the 2013 studio recording of A Roadkill Opera.

The opera itself is a lightly fictionalized telling of the story of the 1988 comedy troupe.

Photo of the cast (left to right): Larry Boggs, baritone, as Eddie; Laura Wehrmeyer, soprano, as Holly; Kelly Curtin, soprano, as Debbie; Christopher Dews as Marv; and conductor/music director/stage director Jeffrey Dokken onstage in the finale of the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia's (SONOVA's) two free, fully staged performances of A Roadkill Opera at the James Lee Community Theater in Falls Church, Virginia on October 21, 2016. Subtitle: "Roadkill on a Stick!" — The cast (left to right): Larry Boggs, baritone, as Eddie; Laura Wehrmeyer, soprano, as Holly; Kelly Curtin, soprano, as Debby; Christopher Dews as Marv; and conductor/music director/stage director Jeffrey Dokken, tenor, as Dave (behind Christopher Dews) onstage in the finale of the **Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia**‘s (SONOVA’s) two free, fully staged performances of ***A Roadkill Opera*** at the **James Lee Community Theater** in Falls Church, Virginia on October 21, 2016. Footage shot at that show makes up the bulk of ***Roadkill!! Greatest Hits! A Roadkill Opera Movie***.

Specifically, the movie combines footage from A Roadkill Opera‘s 2016 live shows at the James Lee Community Theater in Falls Church, Virginia; the Mead Theatre Lab at Flashpoint in Washington, DC; a brief segment from an Artomatic 2012 workshop in Crystal City, Virginia; and sketches video-recorded live at the Jackson Hole comedy revues by the Roadkill On A Stick Frozen Foods Theatre Company (active 1988-1992), principally at their final 1992 show Roadkill!!! Greatest Hits!

Photo collage showing scenes from Roadkill Live!!! surrounding a photo of an Underwood Standard 1912 manual typewriter. The collage includes scenes of two old men on a bench, three players with animal masks, two players at a cart that says Frozen Roadkills on a Stick, and a woman posed like a cheerleader under the marquis at the Wort Hotel where the sign includes the text Roadkill Livev Comedy 8 pm. — ***Roadkill!!! Live!*** ran for 8 weeks at the **Wort Hotel’s Silver Dollar Bar Showroom** in 1988. The story of the hour before the first professional gig for the improv comedy sketch troupe is the basis for ***A Roadkill Opera***. Shown clockwise from the top right, from left to right in each photo: Holly Danner and Ed Bachtel in “Cod Piece Dining Room”; Stephan Parker and Ed Bachtel in “Frozen Roadkills on a Stick”; Deb “DJ” Choupin stunningly beautiful in a red poncho, posing pre-show at Phelps Lake in Grand Teton National Park; box office manager Deb “DJ” Choupin standing under the marquis outside the Wort Cafe cheering us on opening night; Stephan Parker and Ed Bachtel filming a promo as characters from “Old Men”, which was improved each night at the top of the show; Holly Tanner and Ed Bachtel in “Leave It to Beaverzilla”.

Included in the movie are live and studio performances of Dave Rohrer’s Americana song Jackson Hole and music from Ferdinando Paer’s 1804 opera Leonora performed by the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia under the music direction of Maestro Jeffrey Dokken (currently the Music Director for the National Football League’s Washington Commanders; Music Director and Conductor of The American Contemporary Classical Orchestra in Washington, DC; and Music Director and Conductor of The Rome Symphony Orchestra in Rome, Georgia).

“**Jackson Hole**” is an Americana song written and performed by Dave Rohrer, first at the 1988 ***Roadkill!!! Live!*** shows at the **Silver Dollar Bar’s Showroom** at the **Wort Hotel** in Jackson, Wyoming. Dave also played all the instruments on the studio recording of that song, which he also engineered, mixed, and mastered.

Classic sketches from the 1988 and 1992 comedy revues in the movie include “Frozen Roadkills on a Stick” and “Cod Piece Dining Room,” both written by Ed Bachtel. Ed, Stephan Parker, and Louise Gignoux (who was in the 1992 cast) appear in the movie’s sketches. Holly Danner (who was in the 1988 cast) is seen as the cast takes a bow.

Photo: Ed Bachtel performs the national anthem as Stephan Alexander Parker, Holly Danner, and Dave Rohrer hold roadkills on a stick with sparklers to a standing ovation at the sold-out final 1988 performance of Roadkill Live!!! — Ed Bachtel performs the national anthem as Stephan Alexander Parker, Holly Danner, and Dave Rohrer hold roadkills on a stick with sparklers to a standing ovation at the sold-out final 1988 performance of ***Roadkill!!! Live!***

With action set in the 1980s, this over-the-top production 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 Roadkill!!! Greatest Hits! A Roadkill Opera Movie.

Live Audience Premiere at Cult Classic Brewing on June 3, 2025

Between Roadkill!!! Greatest Hits! A Roadkill Opera Movie and Cult’s Talent Tuesday we filled the venue. Thank you, Cult Classic Brewing and all the friends, performers, fans, and simply curious people who showed up!

Background

Stephan Alexander Parker published the sheet music and commercially released a CD of A Roadkill Opera in 2013. The music from A Roadkill Opera, originally composed for Ferdinando Paer’s 1804 opera Leonora, has received a resurgence of interest since Parker began promoting it at the GRAMMYs in 2015.

Photos clockwise from top: librettist/co-producer Stephan Alexander Parker and conductor/tenor/timpanist/co-producer Jeffrey Dokken with their GRAMMY tickets; Dokken (and the rest of the Roadkill Opera entourage, out of frame) sitting across the aisle from "Weird Al" Yankovic at the GRAMMY Premiere (which had festival seating--Yankovic sat near us!) moments before Yankovic won Best Comedy Album for Mandatory Fun; Parker, Dokken, and publisher/photographer/merchandising director DJ Choupin at our assigned seats for the broadcast of the 57th GRAMMYs in February 2015. — Because it had been commercially released and the commercial and artistic staff of **Roadkill On A Stick Frozen Foods Publishing** had joined **ASCAP** and the **National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences**, ***A Roadkill Opera*** got invited to the **GRAMMYs**, which we attended in February 2015. Photos clockwise from top: librettist/co-producer Stephan Alexander Parker and conductor/tenor/timpanist/co-producer Jeffrey Dokken with their **GRAMMY** tickets; Dokken (and the rest of the Roadkill Opera entourage, out of frame) sitting across the aisle from “Weird Al” Yankovic at the GRAMMY Premiere (which had festival seating–Yankovic sat near us!) moments before Yankovic won Best Comedy Album for ***Mandatory Fun***; Parker, Dokken, and publisher/photographer/merchandising director DJ Choupin at our assigned seats for the broadcast of the 57th GRAMMYs in February 2015.

To commemorate the Chicago Opera Theater‘s 2024 North American premiere of Leonora, Parker prepared the first vinyl release of the 2-disc, 180-gram, gatefold album Roadkill!!! Greatest Hits! A Roadkill Opera. The Direct Metal Mastered double LP has the complete 2013 studio recording of A Roadkill Opera on three sides, with the fourth side carrying comedy highlights from the outfit whose true story is told in A Roadkill Opera, the Roadkill On A Stick Frozen Foods Theatre Company (active in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 1988-1992).

Vinyl release celebration Saturday, October 5, 2024 at **Vintage Vinyl** in Evanston, Illinois. ***Roadkill!!! Greatest Hits! A Roadkill Opera*** is a two-disc, 180-gram, gatefold LP that was Direct Metal Mastered in the Czech Republic and pressed and packaged in Canada. **Vintage Vinyl** is the iconic record store immortalized in the classic Stephen Frears movie ***High Fidelity*** starring John Cusack, Jack Black, and Iben Hjejle. (FYI no photography is allowed inside the venue.)

Roadkill!!! Greatest Hits! A Roadkill Opera Movie is a mash-up of live performance highlights by the comedy troupe in 1988 and 1992 with live performances of the opera in 2016 and the 2013 studio recordings of the songs from A Roadkill Opera. Also included are live and studio recordings of the Americana song Jackson Hole, written and performed by Dave Rohrer.

The movie and album have two companion books:

A Roadkill Opera: Silver Dollar Showroom Edition is the libretto or script for the opera. It includes bios from the 2013 world premiere cast for A Roadkill Opera, lyrics to the opera’s songs, and the script for the improv comedy sketch Frozen Roadkills on a Stick.

Hungry Men Don’t Swerve tells how a cold spell in Jackson Hole led to A Roadkill Opera, the underground opera sensation. The deluxe full-color interior takes the reader on a ride from 50-below-zero temperatures in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to Chicago, Vienna, Minneapolis, London, Washington DC, Nashville, Gaithersburg, Los Angeles, and ultimately, back to Chicago for the North American premiere of Leonora in 2024.

Hungry Men Don’t Swerve also includes the lyrics to Dave Rohrer’s song Jackson Hole and the script for the improv comedy sketch Cod Piece Dining Room.

The movie has mostly live performances where the LP has mostly studio performances. The movie also has additional documentary information about the comedy troupe.

Roadkill!!! Greatest Hits! A Roadkill Opera Movie had its premiere screened before a live audience on June 3, 2025, at Cult Classic Brewing.

73 minutes.

English, with English supertitles.

————— The Score’s Backstory ————-

There was a 1798 two-act comic opera, Leonora, ou L’Amour conjugal. It had a French libretto by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, with the action set in sixteenth-century Spain—what is referred to in the opera world as an escape drama. The Bouilly libretto was set to music by Pierre Gaveaux.

Marie Therese, grand-daughter of Empress Maria Theresa, grew up in musical Milan and, when she wed her Austrian cousin and herself became Empress of Austria, brought her passion for music with her. She loved music; made copies, swapped copies, played, sang, and produced public concerts two or three times a year; and, three to ten times a month she would stage private concerts for her own amusement, amassing an ensemble of 12 to 16 musicians and singers to play for two or three hours. In her private concerts, Marie Therese would sing. And she would tell anyone who would listen that her favorite libretto of all time was Bouilly’s Leonora, and she wished someone would set it to new music for her. Within two years, there were not one, not two, but three new settings for her.

Photo titled Seventh Generation Opera shows a family tree and photos of composure Ferdinando Paer, librettist Stephan Alexander Parker, and covers of two books: Parker's If you see roadkill, think opera, and Empress Marie Therese and Music at the Viennese Court 1792-1807 by John A. Rice — ***A Roadkill Opera*** is the Seventh Generation Opera descended from Jean-Nicolas Bouilly and Pierre Gaveaux’s 1798 ***Leonore***.

Paer and Mayr and Beethoven all worked in Vienna, and were all well-aware of the Empress’s generosity towards those who supplied her with new music. Ferdinando Paer, the Parma-born music director at the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna and a regular performer in Marie Therese’s private concerts, moved to another court in Dresden while Austria was at war with Napoleon. It was in Dresden that Paer finished his Leonora for the Empress in 1804. The overture and first act of Paer’s Leonora are the musical basis for A Roadkill Opera. After Napoleon defeated the Austrians, Paer moved to Paris where he eventually headed up the Opéra-Italien, to be succeeded by Rossini. When Paer died in 1839, his Leonora was forgotten.

Forgotten, that is, until another musical denizen, intrigued by Beethoven’s high praise for Paer’s music, recovered Paer’s Leonora. Peter Maag found Paer’s Leonora while artistic director of the Teatro Regio di Parma in Paer’s home town. Maag was so taken with it that he mounted a radio production in 1976 and followed up with a 3-disc boxed set on London Records in 1978. After 140 years of neglect, Paer’s Leonora was back.

Praise

“While there had been some interest in Leonora in the 1970s – and even a heavily cut recording with a starry cast – we have only recently been able to get a clear picture of the opera Paer wrote. The first critical edition of Leonora was prepared for performances in Austria in 2020, and a recording of those concert performances was issued shortly thereafter. When I heard this new recording, I was blown away. The musical invention – both orchestrally and vocally – is remarkable.” Lawrence Edelson, Ellis Neeson General Director, Chicago Opera Theater, writing in the program for the North American Premiere of Leonora, October 1/4/6, 2024, Studebaker Theater

“… a very, very, cool thing… exceptionally well done…”
Paul Barrosse, writer/performer, Mee-Ow Show,
Practical Theatre Company, and Saturday Night Live

“Songs like ‘Impress Them,’ ‘Cod Piece Dining,’ ‘Jello,’ and [Gonna buy my old granddad a] ‘Geo’ pair offbeat humor with beautiful vocals and music.”
Pam Schipper, Gaithersburg News Courier

“An inspired, imaginative work, technically worthy of the highest praise… the orchestration is faultless and complements the vocal parts beautifully.”
Peter Maag writes about Paer’s Leonora

“Roadkill… advances a medley of witty ideas and local jabs. The results are a stitch.”
David Swift, Jackson Hole News, writes about Roadkill!!! Comedy Revue

Vinyl

Roadkill!!! Greatest Hits! A Roadkill Opera is a two-disc, 180-gram, gatefold LP that was Direct Metal Mastered in the Czech Republic and pressed and packaged in Canada.

The three opera sides were produced for the 2013 CD by Stephan Alexander Parker, Jeffrey Dokken, and Jeff Gruber.

The 2013 CD was recorded, mixed, and mastered at Maryland’s Blue House Productions by Audio Engineer Jeff Gruber.

The 2024 vinyl release was produced by Stephan Alexander Parker, who edited in live recordings from the 1988 and 1992 comedy shows in Wyoming with bits from live 2016 opera recordings in Virginia and Washington DC to develop the fourth side.

The 2024 vinyl release has a 2024 companion book: Hungry Men Don’t Swerve. That book details how Parker’s randomly recording Leonora off a WFMT broadcast in 1979-1980 led to a 24-year search to identify the recording; a 2012 workshop and 2013 studio recording of Parker’s new opera; attending the 2015 GRAMMYs; and six fully staged performances of A Roadkill Opera in 2016, two with the full Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Roadkill-Greatest-Hits-LP-cover-1024x1024.png

Roadkill!!! Greatest Hits! A Roadkill Opera was officially released Tuesday, October 1, 2024, to commemorate the North American premiere that evening of Ferdinando Paer’s 1804 opera Leonora at Chicago Opera Theater. It is exclusively available as a Direct Metal Mastered, two-disc, 180 gram, gatefold LP.

Roadkill!!! Greatest Hits! A Roadkill Opera

Label: Roadkill on a Stick Frozen Foods Publishing
Genres: Classical, Comedy
UPC: 195269314361
Availability: October 2024
Category: 180 Gram Vinyl Record
No. of Discs: 2

Buy the LP at these fine establishments in Maryland, Delaware, Massachusetts, and Washington State!

Kent Island Federation of Arts, Inc.

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A Roadkill Opera tells the story of the hour before the lights go up on opening night for a comedy improv troupe in Jackson Hole, Wyoming—the Roadkill On A Stick Frozen Foods Theatre Company. Based (loosely) on a true story from a fast-developing tourist town, this original English libretto by Parker is set to music by Ferdinando Paer (a direct competitor of Beethoven and Napoleon’s maître de chapelle).

In June 2012 A Roadkill Opera was workshopped in Crystal City, Virginia, by Jeffrey Dokken at Artomatic, the Washington DC area’s largest free creative arts event. Dokken, currently the music director for the National Football League’s Washington Commanders, served as music director and conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia from 2010 to 2023. Maestro Dokken reassembled most of the 2012 workshop’s chamber orchestra and singers in 2013 for a series of recording sessions in Maryland.

The cast for the studio opera recording includes Laura Wehrmeyer (Holly), soprano; Andrew Webster (Eddie), baritone; David Timpane (Stephan), baritone; Krista Monique McClellan (Debby), soprano; and Jeffrey Dokken (Dave), tenor.

The chamber orchestra for the opera recording includes Martine Micozzi, flute; Jeannine Altavilla, clarinet; Sarah Robinson, bassoon; Michael Thompson, trumpet; Jeffrey Dokken, timpani; Frank Peracchia, violin I; Ian Ross, violin II; Val Rauch, viola; Kathy Augustine and Natalie Spehar, cello; and Stephan Alexander Parker on hammer, 2×4, and cymbal.

A Roadkill Opera was recorded, mixed, and mastered at Blue House Productions by Jeff Gruber.

The cast for the live improv/comedy recording Roadkill!!! Greatest Hits! includes Christopher Dews (2016); Ed Bachtel (1988, 1992); Stephan Alexander Parker (1988, 1992); Louise Gignoux (1992); and Dave Rohrer (1988, 1992). Rohrer is also responsible for writing and performing the newly released studio recording “Jackson Hole,” which is the first track on the side Roadkill!!! Greatest Hits!

Ferdinando Paer (Composer) was active in Vienna, Dresden, and Paris. He was a regular participant in the thrice-monthly private concerts put on by (and for the personal amusement of) Marie Therese at the royal court of Vienna, Austria. The Empress would assemble talented amateur and professional singers and musicians (similar in size and make-up to the group that recorded A Roadkill Opera) to play mixed concerts of sacred and secular music from her vast collection of scores and parts.

Paer wrote dozens of operas. Leonora, the first act from which the score for A Roadkill Opera was derived, was his 40th opera. It is the same story as Beethoven’s first and only opera, Fidelio.

Sheet Music & Books

In addition to the 2024 gatefold double LP and companion book, the opera libretto and books of sheet music for the singers and orchestra are also available for order through your favorite bookseller or online:

A Roadkill Opera: Silver Dollar Showroom Edition

A Roadkill Opera: Piano/Vocal

A Roadkill Opera: Conductor’s Score

A Roadkill Opera: Parts for Wind Instruments

A Roadkill Opera: Parts for Timpani and String Instruments

A Roadkill Opera Overture: Conductor’s Score & Parts