CCM musical immortalizes local dreamer
Kerry Terrana
Issue date: 10/13/05 Section: Arts & Entertainment
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The News Record
Reservations begin Monday for the first production in the College-Conservatory of Music Studio Series: Floyd Collins, the hit musical by celebrated composer Adam Guettel, which runs Oct. 20-22.
This haunting production, inspired by the book Trapped! The Story of Floyd Collins by Dayton-based cave explorer Roger Brucker, will be showing at the Cohen Family Studio Theater at 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday with two shows on Saturday at 2:30 and 8 p.m.
Based on the true life events of the title character, the play tells the story of a true American dreamer, played by junior Billy Tighe, seeking fame and fortune by turning a Kentucky cave into a tourist hotspot when he attracted the attention of the nation after becoming trapped 200 feet underground.
Floyd's family developed their land, Crystal Cave, into a tourist attraction, but its distance from the interstate highway deterred tourists from visiting.
Floyd went searching for a new cave to develop near the highway and got trapped, prompting the fiasco that ensued.
As Floyd fights for his sanity, and his life, below ground, the first true media crisis ensues on the surface during the rescue effort.
Reporters and tourists alike flock to the circus that erupted from country-folk trying to get city-slickers to the Kentucky caves in a pioneering example of American commercialism.
"The show is going to be amazing because the story is so fresh in our history," said Tighe. "Since it happened in Kentucky, it hits close to home."
"The show is going to be great, the music is written and played very well, and the story is written really well from the heart, with a lot of emotion" he said.
Directed by R. Terrell Finney, head of CCM's Opera, Musical Theater and Drama division, the cast of this acclaimed musical also includes Adam Laird playing Lee Collins and Sarah Jay in the role of Ms. Jane, the father and stepmother of Floyd, respectively.
Ryan Strand and Katie Klaus play Homer and Nellie Collins, the brother and sister of Floyd.
Jonathon Parks-Ramage plays Bee Doyle while Lee Glatz plays the part of Skeets Miller, the Louisville reporter who crawled into the cave to conduct a series of interviews with Floyd before he died.
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