'Bat Boy: The Musical' Stars Nashua Native

Joel Iwaskiewicz totally gets Bat Boy, down to the fiber of the mythical character's misfit half-bat, half-human DNA.

For one thing, everyone understands the archetypal "misfit" character, but as an English teacher at Nashua High School South, Iwaskiewicz says he'd be hard-pressed to name a literary work he teaches that doesn't include a heroic misfit.

"Bat Boy starts as an underdog, and in the end, he's an anti-hero – but you're rooting for him because he's an outcast. And as my students can attest, we rarely read about a character who's not an outcast," Iwaskiewicz said.

"Bat Boy: The Musical" lands at Robert Frost Hall at Southern NH University in Manchester next weekend, Oct. 19-21, staged by The New Thalian Players. Iwaskiewicz, 24, landed the lead role, a feather in his acting cap that is already full of impressive plumage.

Born and raised in Nashua, Iwaskiewicz took his first acting class, while still a middle-schooler, at the American Stage Festival – now the Court Street Theater.

"I guess I've always been an actor. There was enough space between myself and my two older sisters that I spent a lot of time on my own, acting out my favorite "Star Wars" movie scenes, or reading a book and then performing the best parts. In junior high I got involved with Odyssey of the Mind and Destination Imagination, then writing scripts and performing and directing my friends in them," Iwaskiewicz said.

He graduated from Nashua High School South in  2006, attended college in Tennessee, then returned to Nashua, taking various substitute teaching jobs until a position opened up at his alma mater. Now he's teaching English there, and loving every minute of it. 

So what can the audience expect when the curtain rises on "Bat Boy: The Musical" next weekend?

It's going to be a campy, heart-wrenching, mind-blowing musical take on the tabloid headline that just won't die.

Generally, the story line begins when Bat Boy is discovered living in a cave in West Virginia, and eventually adopted by the town. Overtime, the boy takes to farm life and becomes more civilized – his human side starts to overtake his savage side (think Edward Scissorhands,  or Frankenstein).

Then comes the emotional shifts, as Bat Boy wonders if he'll ever be accepted, ever find love, and questions his own existence, which leads to all kinds of musical drama.

Iwaskiewicz admits his inner English teacher can't resist a good character analysis.

"Definitely there is the Edward Scissorhands analogy. In any story like that, has where there are Frankenstein qualities, of a misfit trying to figure out where he fits in and who he is, then he realizes he does have this wonderful humanity but that he is part monster, it  becomes his burden to reconcile it," Iwaskiewicz said.

"It's a fantastic show musically. Laurence O'Keefe, best known as composer of "Legally Blonde: The Musical," allows the show to take itself serioulsy at all the right moments. Sure, you can perform it at full camp level, but if the show doesn't have a certain merit, it's junk food; you eat it but it won't stick with you. O'Keefe definitely brought some meat to the role of Bat Boy," Iwaskiewicz said.

"By the end, as you realize Bat Boy is caught in this tension, of human and moster, you realize he's taking these dark turns, so you realize part of him is holding on for him to get what he wants, and the show erupts in tragedy," Iwaskiewicz said.

"The ending is Shakespearean, especially in the complexity of relationships, but it's going to be wild fun – and let that be a pun," Iwaskiewicz said.

Tickets are available online for "Bat Boy: The Musical", with performances Oct. 19 and 20 at 8 p.m., and a 1 p.m. matinee on Oct. 21. Ticket prices are $17 for general admission; $12 for seniors and SNHU faculty.