Roxy’s Downtown gets ‘Toxic’ for Halloween musical

When Dennis Arnold asked Rick Bumgardner if he’d ever heard of the musical “The Toxic Avenger,” all Bumgardner could conjure was the schlocky 1984 superhero B-movie of the same name.

But Arnold turned him on to the cast album and Bumgardner perused a sample script and – “I thought ohmigod, this has to be on our stage because it’s wonderful,” the Roxy’s Downtown artistic director said.

With Arnold directing, “The Toxic Avenger” runs through Halloween at Roxy’s.

The musical is a collaboration of Joe DiPietro and Bon Jovi keyboard player David Bryan, who followed “Avenger” with the Tony Award-winning “Memphis.”

“The music is incredibly good, and the show is funny — it’s a comedy, but it’s a satire and parody,” Arnold said. “It kind of mixes a lot of (musical) genres. And it’s got a following.”

Arnold compared the fandom to “Toxic Avenger” to “Rocky Horror” and “Evil Dead: The Musical.”

Matt Hale, who plays “Toxie,” first heard the cast album while a student at Wichita State.

“I fell in love with the music in college,” he said. “I thought, this is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. I jumped at the opportunity to be a part of it.”

Hale is one of a five-person cast for the show, which also features Kalene Blanton as Toxie’s love interest, a blind librarian; Christi Moore in three roles; and Ethan Crank and Levon Mathis playing dozens of characters, identified only as “White Dude” and “Black Dude,” respectively.

“They play men, they play women. They play good guys, they play bad guys,” Bumgardner said. “They’re all over the place.”

Much of the comedy, Arnold said, comes from the constant character shifts.

“There’s going to be a whole lot of costume changes,” he said. “I can’t tell you, but it’s so damn funny the cast is laughing through the whole thing, the changes they do.”

The look of the show is “like a comic book come to life,” Bumgardner said, and there’s more to “Toxic Avenger” than at its surface.

“It has that Marvel superhero element to it, yet it’s a lot of dark undertones and messages to the show,” he said. “If you thought you weren’t going to get taught something or feel something, you’re wrong. You’ll feel it in this show.”

“Toxic Avenger”

When: Through Oct. 31; performances at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays

Where: Roxy’s Downtown, 412 ½ E. Douglas

Tickets: $30, from 265-4400 or roxysdowntown.com