'Starship' at Center on Halsted: Darren Criss, puppets and gleeful fans. But snip-snip, StarKid.
Darren Criss of "Glee" supplied the music and lyrics for "Starship" by Chicago-based StarKid Productions, above starring Brant Cox as Roach. CHECK OUT THE "STARSHIP" SLIDESHOW
THEATER REVIEW: "Starship" ★★ Through Feb. 23 in the Hoover-Leppen Theatre at Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted St.; Running time: 3 hours, 40 minutes; Tickets: $25 (sold out) at teamstarkid.com
StarKid Productions, a group of well-trained kids who graduated from the University of Michigan's theater department about five minutes ago, has already made its name doing short, pop-culture parodies and posting them on YouTube. And when I say “made its name,” in no way do I exaggerate.
“A Very Potter Musical,” “A Very Potter Sequel,” and a third musical video with a title not suitable for a family newspaper have collectively scored something like 50 million hits to date. The YouTube channel for StarKid has more than 100,000 subscribers.
It hasn't hurt that one of the troupe's founders is Darren Criss, who plays Blaine Anderson on “Glee,” and played a certain wizard in those aforementioned viral videos.
A good portion of those 100,000 subscribers seemed to be trying to cram their way into the Center on Halsted's Hoover-Leppen Theater — which hosted many more persons below legal drinking age as I've ever seen there before — on Friday night. The occasion was “Starship,” an original, live parody musical from StarKid Productions — which has decided to move its central control room to Chicago (good for them) and has promptly sold out its entire run. One of the authors of “Starship” is Criss.
Given the history with a video medium that famously favors brevity, you'd have thought that Team StarKid understood one of the cardinal rules of parody: Get out while they're still laughing at your shtick.
You'd have thought wrong.