“October Sky,” the world premiere musical that rocketed straight into the hearts of Wednesday’s opening night audience at the Marriott Theatre, tells a story that is familiar in many ways. Like Elton John’s “Billy Elliot” and Sting’s “The Last Ship,” it has a particularly powerful link to the tensions between fathers and sons in blue collar families — men and boys who crave each other’s love and approval, even as one sees his life’s work turning to rust, and the other is forced to break free if he is to have any life at all.
The show, with its fervent score by the immensely talented Michael Mahler, a rock solid book by Aaron Thielen, and beautiful ensemble work by a cast under the relentlessly honest direction of Rachel Rockwell, is a gem. But let’s get the inevitable question about “Will it go to Broadway?” out of the way right from the start. This is not a work of glitz and salesmanship; it is an exquisitely honest, poetic work that ideally should be seen in the very broken towns and cities where it would mean the most — from the Appalachian coal-mining region where it is set, and on even to rural China, which has experienced such grand-scale changes in recent decades. And that is meant as the ultimate compliment.
‘OCTOBER SKY’
Highly recommended
When: Through Oct. 11
Where: Marriott Theatre,
10 Marriott Dr., Lincolnshire
Tickets: $50 – $55
Info: (847) 634-0200; www.ticketmaster.com
Run time: 2 hours and 30 minutes with one intermission
Based on the 1999 movie of the same name (and the book, “Rocket Boys,” whose author, Homer H. Hickam, Jr. — a coal miner’s son who became a NASA engineer, is its central character), “October Sky” is deeply rooted in a crucial moment in American history. The year is 1957, at the height of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union launched its Sputnik rocket — an achievement that became a stunning wake-up call for this country, and the catalyst for a new focus on science education.
When we first meet him, Homer Hickam (played with heart-wrenching realism and vulnerability by the clarion-voiced Nate Lewellyn), is a smart but under-achieving dreamer. A high school kid who isn’t part of the revered jock culture of his older brother, he has a couple of friends — Roy Lee (Patrick Rooney), the handsome kid abused by his step-dad, and O’Dell (Ben Barker), the scrawny boy with a limp. But he is very clear in his own mind that he does not want to follow his father, John (David Hess), a proud miner who now works in management, down into the hellish mines of Coalwood, West Virginia, which are beleaguered by layoffs, labor unrest and accidents.
Inspired by Sputnik, Homer enlists his pals, as well as Quentin (Alex Weisman), the long-bullied “brain” of the school, to become part of The Big Creek Missile Agency. And together, against all the odds — and confronted by the laughter and annoyance of their neighbors — they build a model rocket that actually takes off, eventually wins a national prize and, more crucially, assures that they will move on to college rather than down a mine shaft.
It is the different forms of encouragement supplied by two women whose own dreams never fully materialized that keep Homer going: His mother, Elsie (Susan Moniz), and Miss Riley (Johanna McKenzie Miller), his English teacher, and a secret poet. Moniz and Miller are exceptional singers, but it is their acting that steals the thunder.
There are fine supporting performances by Derek Hasenstab as the mine’s charming Polish welder, Ike Bykovski, and by Terry Hamilton as a union activist.
And as for those silvery rockets: All it takes is a puff of smoke and an explosive pop to make you a believer.