Fame and Misfortune
Legoland
Before our journey on the cyclone was a small story written by Jacob Richmond in the early 2000s named Legoland.
Legoland and Ride the Cyclone operate in the same universe as part of Richmond's as-of-yet unfinished Uranium Teen Scream Trilogy.
The play is a gruesome twosome story following the misadventures of Penny and Ezra Lamb who are enrolled in the St. Cassion Catholic School in Uranium City Saskatchewan after being raised on a hippie commune just outside of town. The siblings are bullied ruthlessly by their classmates and ostracized for being queer (which they are not) and mentally ill (which they are).
Rise to Fame
Ride the Cyclone debuted in 2008, so why is it so popular now?
For this, we can thank TikTok. After a small clip of Jane Doe's Ballade began circulating the social media platform in 2022, people, most specifically Gen-Z, have gone nuts over the musical. It has even entered meme culture with people making cosplays, edits/AMVs, fanart, and writing fanfiction inspired by the show.
“There’s now comprehensive writing about it online, like how each character represents a stage of grief. People are writing their own backstories on the characters, like, I’m talking Tolstoy-level, and it’s fun to read those.”
– Jacob Richmond
Unfortunately, not all has been a sugar cloud for Ride the Cyclone. The following stories highlight some controversies the show has faced.
#SaveRickyPotts
Actor Yannick-Robin Eike-Mirko, the first disabled actor to play Ricky Potts, was fired from their production of Ride the Cyclone after stepping off stage to vomit briefly during the song Sugar Cloud. His able-bodied understudy took over the role for the remaining three performances. The reason for Yannick-Robin’s firing was cited as his disability being “too physically inconsistent for the physical requirements of theatre.”
Subsequently, the role of Ricky Potts has been rewritten to erase his disability and replace the reason for his mutism with trauma. This has greatly angered many fans due to the fact that theatre lacks disability representation and the character’s disability was quite literally erased.
This incident inspired the petition #SaveRickyPotts which advocates for better treatment of actors with disabilities in the professional world.
The Talia Conundrum
In 2023 Chance Theatre’s production of Ride the Cyclone included footage of the War in Ukraine during “Talia.”
While some applauded the theatre for using the medium to highlight real life horrors, others heavily criticized this choice as being insensitive to those who have suffered due to the war.
