Come sit proper again and also you’ll hear a story, a story of a fateful journey. Solely when “The Seven Castaways” opens Sept. 5 at Hamtramck’s Planet Ant, it will likely be much more raunchy, twisted and humorous in an grownup means than the Sixties sitcom in regards to the three-hour boat tour gone mistaken that impressed it.
This musical parody of “Gilligan’s Island” is “not for the youngsters or the simply offended,” a press launch on the manufacturing cautions.
The “Gilligan’s Island” parody musical “The Seven Castaways” opens Sept. 5, 2025 at Hamtramck’s Planet Ant.
“It takes the story of the castaways to perhaps locations the TV present couldn’t,” says Sean Paraventi, the Detroit playwright who got here up with the comedy. “OK, there are seven adults caught on this island. What may have occurred to those adults in essentially the most absurd means?”
Provides Paraventi, referencing a Tony-winning musical parody, “I feel ‘The Seven Castaways,’ hopefully, does for ‘Gilligan’s Island’ what ‘Avenue Q‘ did for ‘Sesame Road.’”
It has been greater than 60 years since Gilligan, the Skipper, the millionaire and his spouse, the film star, the professor and Mary Ann launched into a quick, disastrous journey on the S.S. Minnow, solely to be left stranded after a storm.
“Gilligan’s Island” debuted in 1964 as a foolish, harmless TV sequence at a time when America was nonetheless mourning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It lasted solely three seasons and 98 episodes, nevertheless it continues to dwell on in TV eternity, aka fixed syndication world wide.
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Paraventi, 58, who additionally does advertising for the auto trade, says he grew up watching and loving the present.
“It was simply an enormous a part of my early childhood. It was a go-to TV present. I used to be fairly obsessive about the reruns as a small little one. I might stand on the porch and sing the theme music, belting it out so long as potential. I feel once I was about 5, I sang it at a expertise present at Camp Dearborn in entrance of tons of of individuals,” he recollects.
Paraventi traces his fondness for the sitcom partly to his personal identification with the goofy title character performed by the late Bob Denver. “I simply thought it was actually humorous and entertaining as a toddler. I most likely form of associated to Gilligan as a result of I used to be form of a goof and I used to be the youngest little one and obtained blamed for lots of issues.”
Paraventi and his Meeting Line Theatre Firm are partnering with Hamtramck’s Planet Ant on “The Seven Castaways,” which is his first musical.
The manufacturing is directed by Cassandra Svacha, Paraventi’s longtime buddy and collaborator who has labored with him on previous productions like a 2017 manufacturing of an edgy play about gentrification that facilities on a younger white couple internet hosting a cocktail party in a Detroit home they’re renovating.
The solid of “The Seven Castaways” consists of Allison Megroet, Bailey Boudreau, Dave Durham, Dez Walker, Maureen Paraventi, Alexia Allagreen and Joe Bailey.
Though Paraventi desires to maintain most particulars a shock for the viewers, he says there will probably be songs in regards to the castaways and dream sequences that had been frequent storylines for the real-life present, together with tunes about secrets and techniques stored by the characters and the opposite aspect of the island.
He says Gilligan might be the character within the parody who goes essentially the most in opposition to his candy, bumbling TV kind.
Paraventi says the potential viewers for “The Seven Castaways” is not restricted to boomers. “I feel it appeals to hardcore followers and anyone with only a imprecise recollection of the present. Our youngest solid member is 23 and he appears to be actually having fun with it.”
Seems just like the S.S. Minnow continues to be able to entertaining audiences on a six-decade tour.
Contact Detroit Free Press popular culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@freepress.com.
‘The Seven Castaways’
8 p.m. Sept. 5, 6, 12 and 13; 3 p.m. Sept. 7 & 14
Planet Ant’s Ant Corridor
2320 Caniff, Hamtramck
$30
This text initially appeared on Detroit Free Press: ‘Gilligan’s Island’ musical parody brings twisted fun to Planet Ant
