Triassic Parq The Musical - MMT

At this point most, if not all of us, have seen the film Jurassic Park. DNA of dinosaurs being replicated in a lab and brought to life, roaming free in an enclosed space - all for the benefit of people to see live dinosaurs. Triassic Parq takes that idea, turns it on its head, and makes it sing. Presented by Minneapolis Musical Theatre and performing for one more week at Lush, Triassic Parq is a really fun, rocking exploration of gender, faith, and community written by Marshall Pailet, Bryce Norbitz and Steve Wargo, with music by Marshall Pailet. The premise is the same as the film except the lab does not have enough dino DNA and so they add some frog DNA to the mix. While this doesn't change the look of the dinos, we do find out that all the dinosaurs are female...until one of them changes into a male dinosaur. How does a tight-knit community, a religious community who prays to The Lab (their creator and provider of food) at that, deal with this sudden change?

Keeping the focus on the velociraptor of Innocence, we watch her ask questions about life, be excited about her birthday, and begin to question her faith and authority figures - typical teen. The authority figure in question is the velociraptor of Faith who leads daily prayer and is the communities spiritual guide. Yet when T-Rex 2, good friends with Innocence and best friend/companion to T-Rex 1 suddenly changes gender, Faith has no answer but to kick him out of the community. Both T-Rex's are torn with this decision, and Innocence isn't happy about her friend being kicked out. She hears rumor of someone on the other side of the fence who may have a solution. She finds her way through the fence and eventually comes across the velociraptor of Science. The rest of the story? Go see it and find out.

The score is rock/pop based with guitar, drum, bass, and keyboard. A lot of the songs have a bombastic searching energy about them which fits the action of the story being told, however I feel a little more variety would have been nice. The vocalists and performers were fantastic. Innocence (Max Kile) has a wonderful strong voice and was a joy to watch their exploration of the role. T-Rex 1 (Caitlin Sparks) has an incredible voice which I feel I have seen before - and I have. T-Rex 2 (Jake Mathey) matches energy with 1 which is impressive. Faith (Nick Miller) was great in the part. I have seen Nick perform before in the Mixed Precipitation and it was fun hearing his wonderful voice take on a different type of music. The small cast fits well with each other, creating a cohesive company. The design throughout was exactly what the show needed. While the music and vocals may have leaned toward volume, the space is large and reverberant, as well as fighting the noise and music from the main bar area. Despite that, it was a really fun show that you won't find many people performing. That is the joy of seeing  product by MMT. They focus on new, or rare musicals that are not often performed. To some extent, for the purpose alone, you should go see this production. The side benefit is that you will see actors that you probably don't know, and you will have a truly enjoyable time.