Time Warp

“You unlock this door with the key of imagination,” began each episode of the iconic Twilight Zone series, with a suit-and-cigarette Rod Serling delivering his social commentary wrapped in a sci-fi fable. The pioneering TV show continues to delight audiences a half-century later, most recently thanks to the Theater Company...

By Josiah Hesse

November 7, 2013

Audio By Carbonatix

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“You unlock this door with the key of imagination,” began each episode of the iconic Twilight Zone series, with a suit-and-cigarette Rod Serling delivering his social commentary wrapped in a sci-fi fable. The pioneering TV show continues to delight audiences a half-century later, most recently thanks to the Theater Company of Lafayette, which will be rolling out the ninth installment of its Twilight Zone: Live! on Stage! parody event.

“There’s a timeless message with Rod Serling’s scripts, and we’ve done our best to try and preserve that,” says co-director Vonalda Utterback, who, along with the TCL crew, will be taking on the following episodes: “The Chaser,” “The Passerby” and “Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.”

“There is some parody of Twilight Zone in this production, but I would never say we’re mocking it,” Utterback explains. “We do some gender-bending with what was a male-dominated acting field in the 1950s. And we’ve chosen to keep the costumes in the period of the time. Most of [the characters] are dressed in black, white and gray so it looks like you’re watching a TV show from the 1950s. We also do commercial parodies, and we have a lot of fun with those.”

Twilight Zone: Live! on Stage! opens tonight and runs through November 16 at the Mary Miller Theater, 300 East Simpson Street in Lafayette; tickets are $10 to $16. For more information, call 720-209-2154 or visit tclstage.com.
Fridays, Saturdays, 7:30 p.m.; Sun., Nov. 3, 2 p.m.; Thu., Nov. 7, 7:30 p.m. Starts: Oct. 25. Continues through Nov. 16, 2013

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