Copernicus City Theatre To Stage Betazoid, Cardassian Adaptations

Posted on 239801.22 by Nash Blaxland in Arts & Culture

COPERNICUS CITY, LUNA — The Copernicus City Amateur Dramatics Society (CCAmDrams) announced their 2398 season today, marking the first time that musical adaptations of Betazoid and Cardassian literary fiction will be performed on Luna.

“We are thrilled to have such an exciting lineup of theatrical experiences for our 79th season at the historic Armstrong Theatre,” said artistic director Khou Choua Cho. “In addition to contemporary and classic dramatic works from Earth and Luna, our company is proud to present the galactic premieres of Thoughtless Winter and Meditations on a Crimson Shadow.”

Thoughtless Winter was adapted for the musical stage from the novel by Levralet Izun of Betazed, winner of the 2396 Rixx Prize for Fiction. The three-act play features complex dance sequences to visually represent telepathic communication between the characters.

“The high-energy, heart-stopping choreography will be a delight to the casual theatre-goer and the drama critic alike,” said Jana Zauber, the play’s director. “Betazoid literature has a richness and a mystery that makes it ideal for adaption to the theatre, and we are so happy to present it to audiences in Copernicus City and beyond.”

Meditations on a Crimson Shadow, one of the monumental works of Cardassian literature, has been given a rather conceptual adaptation for the theatre. Whereas the original takes place in a potential future where the Cardassian Union has fought a victorious war against the Klingon Empire, the adaptation substitutes fictitious nation-states at an unspecified time in Earth’s pre-warp past.

“We wanted to tell an accessible, universally understood story,” said Mario Vântu, the playwright who adapted Crimson Shadow for the stage. “Cardassians and Klingons are a little out-of-the-way for the average Copernican. Our re-imagining is approachable, yet still faithful to the original work.”

Reactions amongst theatre circles in the Sol system have been mostly positive.

“I am so excited to see these shows,” said Daniel Marek, a replimat owner and CCAmDrams season-ticket holder from Tycho City. “It’s nice they’re doing something different. I’m sure they’ll be fantastic performances.”

Not everyone is pleased by the announcement, however.

“I just think it’s a bit much,” said Arman Tuncel, a member of the Copernicus City Council representing a residential area in the city’s north. “I mean, theatre is all about storytelling, right? Don’t we have enough of our own stories to tell? I’d be gutted if one of our hardworking, local playwrights was passed over to make room for these alien plays.”

Another member of the city council, while united with Councillor Tuncel in principle, gave a completely different reason for her objections.

“We always do this,” said Evelina Loreto, whose constituency takes in the city’s central core, including the historic Armstrong Theatre. “It’s a story about Cardassians and Klingons, but we’ve twisted it into some kind of historical human drama. Why do we have to make everything about ourselves? It’s not an adaptation, its cultural appropriation.”

Besides the two aforementioned musicals, the 2398 season also includes such familiar Terran and Lunan playwrights as Arthur Miller, Mary Zimmerman, and Onyekachi Ogbonna. Single-show and season tickets are available now through the Armstrong Theatre’s box office and all reputable off-world ticket brokers.

Despite the ‘amateur’ in its name, Copernicus City Amateur Dramatics Society has established itself as one of the premier theatre companies in the Sol system. Its record-breaking 2397 season received universal critical acclaim, in particular for its revival of Tomorrow’s Phoe`nix, a 23rd-century dramatisation of Zefram Cochrane’s early life.

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About Nash Blaxland

Nash Blaxland is a human journalist with a career spanning over 20 years. A graduate of the University of Tasmania and the University of Alpha Centauri, Blaxland is a fifth-generation journalist and has been a correspondent for the Federation News Service since 2392, based from both Earth and StarBase 118.