Experience Marianas

About Us

Bringing Broadway to Weston: Third year students of the BA (Hons) Musical Theatre programme at University Centre Weston - Academy of Performing Arts, are due to perform UK premiere of Broadway composer's newest musical at the Tropicana, Weston-super-Mare, in early December.

Students at University Centre Weston - Academy of Performing Arts, present the UK premiere of Experience Marianas. The musical is the latest show by Broadway writing team Rob Rokicki and Sarah Beth Pfeifer, who will be travelling from New York to develop the show alongside the students. The piece is a high-octane, darkly comedic examination of systems of control and how we struggle to define our identities within them. As writer Sarah Beth Pfeifer describes, "Experience Marianas is an exciting project we've been writing over the past few years - a sapphic rock musical adventure about one woman's journey to escape an oceanic cult. How appropriate to be staging it right by the sea! The story is full of darkly comedic twists and turns and we can't wait to share this piece in its UK debut, and we hope you'll join us for a wild night at the theatre!"

The music is inspired by retro-flavoured synths and New Wave rock. Supporting the production will be a live rock band, provided by students of the University Centre Weston music programme. Directing the production will be Grace Taylor (Associate Director on Six).

Set aboard a ship, playwrights/composers Rob Rokicki and Sarah Beth Pfeifer, immerse the audience into the Marianas Institute, an aquatic 'healing centre' founded by failed actor, Dr. Davis Johnson. The Institute indoctrinates the audience into the group in real-time. "Informational sessions" start off completely plausible but get progressively wilder and more fantastical, complete with pyramid schemes, sex rituals, sea monsters and eventually, murder.