The Charleston Light Opera Guild is staging “Paradise Park, The Musical”, starting this weekend at the Guild Theater in Charleston.
The show is based on the 1992 feature film “Paradise Park,” written and directed by Martinsburg-born filmmaker Danny Boyd. He collaborated with Mountain Stage Creative Director Larry Groce to set the story to music.
This is the first time the Charleston Light Opera Guild has produced a non-Broadway show in it’s 85-year history. That’s according to Nina Denton-Passinetti, the show’s director.
“We’re proud we’re presenting it. I don’t think there’s anyone that isn’t,” Denton-Passinetti said. “Anybody who was reluctant in our group has been won over. They are kind of ‘Oh, yeah, I didn’t even realize that’s what was going on. But now it makes sense.’ And I think people will appreciate it.”
The show centers on poverty, religion, and people caring for each other through hard times, natural disasters and everyday life. The musical tells the story of an elderly woman in a West Virginia trailer park who dreams that God will come to their community and grant them all a wish.
“This West Virginia story, written by West Virginians, performed by West Virginians. It still speaks today, many years later after Danny originally wrote it,” Denton-Passinetti said.
Performances are Feb. 4 through 6 and Feb. 11 through 13. Tickets are available through the light opera guild website and at the theater office two hours before the show for $20 each. Visit the Charleston Light Opera Guild’s website for more information.
A few years back, West Virginia writer and filmmaker Danny Boyd stepped into the world of graphic novels, releasing books under his cult-classic Chillers franchise, as well as other stories. One of which was Carbon, a mythological world set in an alternative West Virginia and dealing with an ancient race of people and their effect on the coal industry thousands of years later. The follow-up, Salt, was released in late-2016 and picks up where Carbon left off. We spoke with Boyd about his latest graphic novel, some of the social and environmental issues addressed in the story and why he’s just now getting around to promoting it the way he would have liked.
The last time we talked, we were talking about Carbon — which was the first installment in this mythological world, so to speak. Now comes Salt and take us to the world. Let’s start with Carbon. Describe that world for us what happened and then get us into where we’re going with Salt.
Carbon was a story that I had nearly 30 years after living in Williamson and seeing the destruction of strip mining and those kinds of things. But in the movie world, as a filmmaker, I was never going to be able to have the kind of budget to do something that big and then when I got into comics it’s like, ‘Oh, man, with this I finally can.’ So, it’s Gods, monsters and evil coal barons.
So, I started thinking about it as an entertainer: Coal, coal, coal, coal.
Coal is organic material. It’s plants, animals, people. What would happen if it came back to life and was ignited by an evil industrial power? So that launches Carbon which leads through to Salt with the lead character, Heat Hatfield. And you’re right, it is a mythological approach with it the tragic hero turned to epic hero.
There are some heavy things going on here. For one, there’s sort of an apocalyptic vibe. In Salt, there are some issues of climate change and global warming. What is it like trying to use a platform such as a graphic novel for a subject matter that is so socially ubiquitous at this point?
Credit Caliber Comics
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It is so hard to digest. Who wants to turn on TV anymore? You know, after the last election, it’s the last thing you want to bring joy in your life. So, it’s difficult for a career. I don’t know if that was successful, but [you have to ask yourself] ‘OK, how do you make these topics entertaining?’ That’s number one. If it’s not entertaining, you’re not going to bring people to it. Hopefully, at least, through the backdoor. But, if you’re a climate denier, this is a nonstarter for us. But, if you turn on TV right now and watch the Weather Channel with this new hurricane system coming through — even in a very stable society like ours, we’re only a few clicks from melting down politically, environmentally, all of those kinds of things.
There’s one scene I do want to address in Salt and that is a moment that particularly addresses issues of race. It’s one of those things that, whenever you talk to people about issues of race in West Virginia, you oftentimes hear one of two things. One of the things you hear is — normally from an outsider’s perspective, I would say — that West Virginia is very overtly racist, that we’re a bunch of hillbillies that are ignorant and have no progressive ideas as far as dealing with race. And then, on the other hand, you hear something to the effect of: ‘There’s such a low more minority population that race isn’t an issue here. It seems like you’re trying to respond to some of that in some fashion or another.
I am and thanks for picking up on that. It’s a sticky wicket and it was when I was writing this that I realized, ‘Man, I have my entire teaching career — 32 years with a historically black college and university — I’ve lived in Tanzania, I live in a black community by choice.’ When you’re around the community, you start hearing those things: ‘Oh, we’re all black in the coal mines. You know, we all come out that way. So, we’re not racist’ — that kind of thing. And then you start to hear, ‘No, not really. That’s only if you’re white.’
Credit Courtesy Photo
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And I realize the white privilege that I carried — that I didn’t really acknowledge and I really wanted to see and I don’t know if I was successful. But, I wanted that scene with Willie Mays Vincent, who who’s like one of the main heroes of this whole epic thing, with Heat Hatfield where he says, ‘Well, you’re my best friend.’ Well, that’s a stereotype. People always say, ‘I’m not prejudiced. Look at my best friend.’ Well, no, you need to look at these things and live a little bit deeper.
Right before we started speaking, you handed me a sheet of paper. It’s essentially just a one-sheet, more or less a press release, that deals with the Trump Administration and how that’s playing a role and in making dystopian literature interesting and marketable. What can you say — at least in your experience as a creator, as a graphic novelist, as a filmmaker, as a person that’s delved into that particular kind of art — how is the relationship with the administration affecting the marketability or the conversations surrounding what it is that you’re doing?
Well commercially, I probably shouldn’t tell you, but I’ll stand by this: I didn’t think these things would happen. If you read the interview with me at the end of Salt, I’m saying, ‘Hey, look, West Virginia’s got the short end the stick, America.’ I said, ‘Hillary, how about helping us out. You know, giving us a stimulus package after we built the country.’ So, that’s how little that I thought that this would happen.
But this interview took place and was published before the election?
You talk about bad luck timing; my book came out the day after the election. You talk about sucking the oxygen out of the room. So, these weren’t like the most farfetched things.
One of the things I look at in Salt is that it’s a story that seems like it’s still not finished. Is that is that right? Is there more coming from this storyline?
Well, it has an ending that’s a big, big, big ending. So, I hope that encourages people out there to get the books and we won’t give it away. But it opens up another door. We always think things are black and white — it’s this or it’s that. We’re very arrogant to think that we could destroy the earth. We can’t destroy the Earth — we can destroy human kind as we know it.
So, it’s not just about when will we destroy humankind or will we not. It’s like, well, is there something in the middle? And we’re hinting a little at evolution here. Again, this is all mythological and that’s probably as much as I want to talk about the ending.
West Virginia writer and filmmaker Danny Boyd’s latest graphic novel Carbon tells the story of an ancient race of people and their effect on the coal industry thousands of years later as an evil coal baron tries to mine a super form of coal.
In an interview with West Virginia Public Broadcasting, here’s a few things Boyd touched on about Carbon, the development of the story, and his evolving beliefs on energy and the environment:
On the Development of the Concept and Story
Five years ago, Boyd began exploring the genre of graphic novels as another creative outlet for his work. After releasing Death Falcon Zero vs. the Zombie Slug Lords and a re-imagined and expanded narrative of his 1987 cult film Chillers, Boyd quickly saw the viability of a career outside of film. Yet, long before those projects came about, he was developing another graphic novel: a mythological story set in southern West Virginia mixed with modern-day corporate greed at the cost of human life.
“About 10 years ago, it finally hit me ‘always go back to the beginnings, go back to the beginnings,'” Boyd said.
“Coal is carbon. We are carbon. Coal is formed by plant and animal life–us–over the course of millions of years. What if you reverse that process? It’s that ‘what if?'”
Boyd also explained that Carbon was supposed to be his big Hollywood film but that the impending budget for such a project kept it from hitting the big screen.
“I just never got to the circles where we could put this kind of budget together. When I fell into graphic narrative five years ago, it was like ‘holy cow I can do this now because it costs the same amount,'” he said.
Credit Cabon by Danny Boyd / Caliber Comics
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Caliber Comics
On the Timing of Carbon‘s Release
With January’s Elk River chemical spill and newly-released rules from the EPA aimed to cut carbon pollution, Carbon comes at a time where the conversation about coal and industry is in the national spotlight. But, Boyd said the fact that there was so much discussion around the book’s release was mostly by chance.
“The book had been delayed. It was supposed to come out in January and delayed again. The publisher kept seeing Charleston, West Virginia on world news and he called me and said, ‘Since we’ve been delayed, I’m seeing this water thing. Would you like to add something to your afterword about that.’ And I said, ‘Heck yeah, I do.’ So I sat down and wrote that piece there at the end.”
Boyd also said the timing of the book could have come with mine disasters like Sago or Upper Big Brach, as the concept was there before those events happened. He said he didn’t want to exploit those incidents for personal gain.
On Stepping into the Political Arena with Carbon
Boyd said he purposefully stayed away from being political with his work because he feels it’s “presumptuous of entertainers and artists to [make their politics too blatant.]”
And although Carbon is highly politicized, Body said he’s not anti-captialism or anti-industry. He sees his views on coal and the environment as coming from somewhere in the middle.
“Any normal-thinking human has to realize the last two industries you want to regulate themselves are coal and chemical. I’m sorry, greed is going to win out. We need safe guards there,” he explained.
While those views are sure to spark controversy for those with industrial interests, Boyd said he wasn’t fearful of any commercial or critical backlash for expressing his views on the subject. But, that’s not to say he wasn’t careful about it.
“What scared me the most was offending my fellow West Virginians. I can take the heat.,” he explained. “People don’t like my work? I’ve been in show business, I can take that. They don’t want to buy my stuff? I can take that. But, what I worry about the most is losing the friendship, because West Virginia has been awesome to me.”
