Lizard Boy

Musical (2015)
Book, Music and Lyrics by Justin Huertas
Directed by Lyndsey Allyn Cox
Music Direction by Violet Wang
Speakeasy Stage Company
Boston Center for the Arts
South End, Boston
October 24 – November 22, 2025

With Peter DiMaggio (Cary), Keiji Ishiguri (Trevor), Chelsie Nectow (Siren)

Poor Trevor (Keiji Ishiguri) has turned green from the assassination of a dragon and the spray of its blood upon him. He feels alone, exposed and deficient, and in desperate need of love and partnership. Trevor meets Cary (Peter DiMaggio) via a dating site, their love struggles along, and Trevor feels anxious and abandoned the whole way. The ins and outs of Trevor’s and Cary’s connection is woven in with the story of Trevor also meeting Siren (Chelsie Nectow) at a club. She’s a seductive woman who, as well, it turns out, has been exposed to the dragon blood.

It is revealed that both Trevor and Siren have various superpowers, which, despite giving them the capacity to read one another’s minds and move things at a distance, does not help much in the realm of love. Siren turns out to be something of a provocateuse and gets involved in a stolen identity rumble with Trevor and Cary. Throughout all of this, Trevor has to come to terms with his own weird looks, and his superpowers, which don’t seem to be helping him in the realm of love. But then, somehow, Trevor the Lizard Boy begins to learn to accept who he is and what he has become and the tides of love turn, though the color of Trevor’s skin does not. But wings get sprouted, someone gets wounded and, despite the confrontation of a rumble and a knifing, Trevor, Cary and Siren wind up heading off to confront the dragon in battle. Whew!

This musical falls squarely in the current genre, as yet unnamed (Therapop?), but which contains a whole host of shows – many of them popular Broadway musicals – Spring Awakening (2006), Next To Normal (2008), Dear Evan Hansen (2016), Jagged Little Pill (2018), Fun Home (2013) – about people, usually young people, with a great deal of psychological uncertainty but a good deal of heart. Trevor is no exception. He is a vulnerable and charming young man – albeit with green skin and superpowers – and simply wants Cary to love him. Meanwhile, Cary, who strums the guitar throughout and provides the main instrumental basis for this curiously composed show, works his way through various ballads, towards some sort of romantic resolution with Trevor.

But this is also a musical strongly in the sci-fi/superhero tradition, like Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark (2011), Bat Boy (1992), Back To The Future (2020), The Rocky Horror Show (1973). The gay romance and the self-doubt are mixed in with a background of mythological themes, sometimes violent, that give the psychology and romance a unique twist. It’s a mix which might well appeal particularly to a certain subset of youth culture.

Chelsie Nectow as Siren urges things along with provocative drive – involving some mystery about the dragon and her capacity to transfer identity to others – it’s not always clear what’s going on – while strutting across the stage with a good deal of energy and providing a good amount of vocal depth to the trio of voices. She also plays various supplementary instruments, and they are sometimes interestingly used – tambourines and other percussions, along with a sometimes played keyboard.

As well, Ishiguri as Trevor plays the cello which is given a broad sound in places and an interesting addition to the rather spare instrumentation. It’s a sweet and unexpected twist.

The music for the show has considerable bounce in places, and some of the trio harmonies are truly delightful and compelling. There are a good number of songs like Truth Is What Matters,Another Part of Me, and Lizard Boy, about feeling okay about oneself. Those are complemented by numbers like Things I Worry About about being able to have a loving relationship. The instrumentation – besides the strummed guitar, the cello and the electric piano – includes ukelele and kazoo, making the mix upbeat and folksy at times – an unexpected tone for a psychological sci-fi melodrama, more commonly dark and moody. This comingling of the musical genres adds a whimsical element to the underlying poignancy of the love and psych story and the darkness and violence of the sci-fi drama.

The staging of this show is rudimentary, which does not help in figuring things out, so a great deal is left up to the imagination. Figuring out what is going on in this rather elaborate plot with a lot of narration but not so much staging is not so simple, but it may appeal vividly to those whose tastes run to the fantastic and who absorb complicated fantasy plots without duress.

The lyrics are often set to simple end-of-line rhymes, making them rudimentary and a bit doggerel-ish. This technique also adds a kind of folksy charm to the fantastic plot and the dark psychological and emotional themes, perhaps particularly appealing to those who are open to a scaled-down and lightened version of a superhero musical. Overall the music is sometimes bouncy, sometimes longing, not highly innovative, but energized and sweetly appealing on occasion.

Performances by DiMaggio, Ishiguri and Nectow are all perfectly fine, with DiMaggio carrying the major musical responsibilities via his strumming guitar. The moments when the trio harmonizes vocally are forcefully appealing.

For some, this paean to the emotional challenges of being a nonstandard human, and the associated challenge of learning to appreciate one’s own powers and talents despite feeling ugly and strange, will ring true in this unusual combination of idioms. The merging of adolescent psychological vulnerability with love within a mythological and superhero context may well hit the mark.

Normally, the show runs about an hour and a half without intermission. At the performance I attended, there was a long break in the middle of the show to attend to technical difficulties, so things stretched out a bit, perhaps rendering the complex narrative a bit more elusive and fragmented than desired.

– BADMan (aka Charles Munitz)