Get ready for the ride of your life as you meet Karnak and hear the story of six students who met a grim fate in the fantastic “Ride the Cyclone” theater production, produced by Laredo College Theater Director Dave McGinnis.
“Ride the Cyclone” is a musical centered around choir students who perish in a crash of The Cyclone rollercoaster. In the afterlife, they meet Karnak, a being who looks like an old fortune teller machine, who offers to bring one of the students back to life.
“What unfolds is a story of people who learn how challenging it is to live in each others’ lives as they learn grace, forgiveness and love,” McGinnis said. “Anger and vengeance are easy for us to feel and follow, but justice can only grow from grace.”
In the process of trying to determine who will return to Earth, the audience sees the students’ innermost dreams, regrets and experiences. They will delve into sensitive topics that they may have been too afraid to address while alive.
The LC adaptation will bring this cultural phenonmenon to the local audience and explore the beautiful mixture of the grit and audacity of youth with the ethereal ecstasy one can only know upon discovering the worth of life itself, McGinnis said.
“This piece gives those of us who have a little more past and those who have a little more future a chance to witness a moment together and say to one another ‘I see now’,” he added.
Tickets are $10 or free with a valid LC ID. The first showing will be on Nov. 8 at the Guadalupe and Lilia Martinez Fine Arts Center Theater at the historic Ft. McIntosh Campus at 7 p.m. The production will also be shown on Nov. 9 at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. and Nov. 10 at 3 p.m. Discretion is advised as the show is rated mature for language and adult themes.
The LC production will see students take the stage and make a case as for why they should be the one who is brought back to life. The roles have already caused some introspection as students reflect on how “Ride the Cyclone” speaks to their own lives.
“Each character’s journey reflects the vastness of human emotion and aspiration, illustrating that even amidst chaos, there’s beauty in our shared struggles and dreams,” actor Lisa Martinez said.
