Opening Thursday is The Derby County Derby, a student-penned play “making fun of Seabiscuit and rich people,” in the words of DCD producer Ford Altenbern, a Comm sophomore. On Tuesday, North by Northwestern interviewed Altenbern and Comm senior Alex Jacobs, one of DCD’s four writers.
North by Northwestern: Where did the idea for The Derby County Derby come from?
Alex Jacobs: Well, we knew we wanted to write a play. We didn’t know what we wanted to write about. Actually, as it so happened, last year the four writers — including myself — went down to Kentucky because Matthew Hays, who’s one of the writers, is from Kentucky, and we went to the racetracks there. Not the Kentucky Derby, but a track in Lexington called Keeneland, and just had a grand ol’ time. We weren’t cognizant of it at the time, but some seeds were planted, some comedic seeds, and we allowed them to germinate and bloom into what we have now.
NBN: Was there anybody at the racetrack who directly inspired this play?
AJ: I don’t know how directly this inspired me, but I saw this REALLY drunk dude who was just steadying himself with a woman’s ass. He kept leaning over, and he would use her ass as a way to stand up.
NBN: Will we see some crazy hats?
Ford Altenbern: Oh, there are crazy hats. There’s also some horses. There’s some drugs. There’s an epic race, as you would expect .... There are two main plotlines, and everything else stirs around that. So there’s a Ponyboy, who’s got a terminal illness, and they’re entering their horse — him and his father, Ponyman — to the race, to try to win some money to pay for the doctors and all that for his illness. Then there’s also the Vandersleuth family, who run a big pharmaceutical company, and they’re entering their prize horse as well, just to win because they wanna win. As things go on, we see Ponyman trying to bring back an old, kind of washed up jockey, whereas the Vanderseluths have the hotshot new jockey. He’s kind of a douchebag. [The jockeys] are old rivals, so they get to throw down. There’s a daughter who doesn’t fit in, ‘cause she’s a lesbian. There’s the little beggar boy. There’s a couple of other jockeys. There’s a horse doctor, who has her own way of healing horses. There’s another horse doctor, who has ANOTHER way of healing horses .... It’s definitely an ensemble piece. It’s all about the timing people have bouncing off each other.
NBN: What’s been the biggest difficulty so far?
AJ: The audience is always such an integral part of how you play [the show] and how it works. You get laughs where you didn’t expect them. You get lower laughs or no laughs at all where you do expect them. That’s always a huge part of adjusting when you do a comedy, and it’s also a really exciting part of it.
FA: The writers really wanted to have a musical number. And up until the last minute, we didn’t have somebody to write the music. We actually have a freshman, Chris Anselmo, [who] came in during Welcome Week to write the music. And now we’ve got a whole musical number ready.
NBN: You wrote a musical number in a week?
FA: We actually did it in a day. Our first musical rehearsal was Friday, and we’ve done other things since then.
NBN: What are you most excited for?
FA: I’m most excited for the live horse. It’s not actually a live horse, but you’ll see. It’s pretty funny. It’s pretty weird. Also, drug scenes. Some people are taking drugs, and we’re getting into their psyche. We got strobe lights. We got funky color lights. We got full soundscape for all that. There might be a little copyright infringement, we’ll see.
AJ: It’s been a lot of fun. The four of us who wrote it are all good friends. I think writing something as a foursome isn’t the most natural thing, but it ended up working out really well, riffing on ideas together. And then having this amazing cast [and] hearing them read it for the first time was so exciting, and it’s only gotten better .... But the coolest part of it was — because obviously we all have our own different sensibilities — we found a middle heat, a unique voice, a voice that’s unique from our own individual ones. And we’re all also in it. It’s fun on all levels .... This show, it’s good, it’s not that clean, but it’s fun.
The Derby County Derby will play at Shanley Hall on Thursday, Oct. 4, at 11 p.m.; Friday, Oct. 5, at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.; and Saturday, Oct. 6, at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Tickets are $5 for students and $10 for general admission.