Do you like comics? Do you like theater? Will you be in New York City this month? Well, then you are lucky indeed! Right now, it’s a geek’s paradise over at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn as The Comic Book Theater Festival brings panels to the boards.
The Festival began on June 2nd and runs through July 1st, containing fabulous offerings that would appeal to any pop culture afficcionado.
One such offering is the wonderful Galactic Girl in: Attack of the Starbarians, written and directed by Jon Hoche and starring Erica Swindell as the titular Galactic Girl. This hilarious sci-fi adventure follows Team Galactic Girl, a badass trio consisting of Galactic Girl, the veteran fighter with “a booty that just won’t quit”; Pixel (Jamie Dunn), her best friend, second-in-command, and techie extraordinaire; and Moxie 5 (Becky Beyers) the high-flying, enthusiastic rookie. Together, they defend the High Federation Council Dominion… well, some empire with a really long name, anyway… on behalf of General Fu Fu (Temar Underwood). However, when they are sent to Starbaria to deal with the puppy-kicking, warmongering Starbarians, Galactic Girl learns that all isn’t what it appears to be.
Galactic Girl in: Attack of the Starbarians will have you laughing from the first few moments of the show. While this is the Comic Book Festival, this particular show incorporates the conventions of other geek-friendly mediums, like gaming and sci-fi television, all to great effect. This felt like something written by a fan, not by someone trying to capitalize on geekdom being popular, which makes all the difference in the effectiveness of the humor. In addition to the fun, solid writing, the performers in the show were all game and threw themselves into their roles with giddy abandon. Erica Swindell shines as Galactic Girl with impeccable comic timing, an underlying gravitas, and, well, a booty that just won’t quit. Jamie Dunn and Becky Beyers, in addition to their acting skill, show off some incredible physicality as they flip and fly through the air during the fight sequences. Temar Underwood is a stand-out as General Fu Fu and his twin brother, Kermugen, and got some of the biggest laughs of the evening. And not only was the show great, but the program contains a Galactic Girl comic, by Kevin Conn and Willis Bulliner (cover by Barbara Tarr), that makes you wish that this cast of characters were more widely distributed.
Galactic Girl in: Attack of the Starbarians is on at The Brick tomorrow (Wednesday) at 7 PM and Thursday at 9 PM. Tickets for this, or any of the other shows in The Comic Book Festival, can be purchased at The Brick website. Why pay $16 to see a comic book movie in 3-D, when you can pay $15 to actually be in the room with the characters? The Comic Book Theater Festival: it just makes sense.
Teresa Jusino has a booty that just won’t quit. She can be seen as the teen geek in the current Bordertown book trailer. Her “feminist brown person” take on pop culture has been featured on websites like ChinaShopMag.com, PinkRaygun.com, Newsarama, and PopMatters.com. Her fiction has appeared in the sci-fi literary magazine, Crossed Genres; she is the editor of Beginning of Line, the Caprica fan fiction site; and her essay “Why Joss is More Important Than His ‘Verse” is included in Whedonistas: A Celebration of the Worlds of Joss Whedon By the Women Who Love Them, which is on sale now wherever books are sold! 2012 will see Teresa’s work in two upcoming sci-fi anthologies. Get Twitterpated with Teresa, or visit her at The Teresa Jusino Experience.