THE STORY: Transplanting characters from The Tempest to present-day New York, ROUGH MAGIC is a Shakespearean action-adventure-fantasy in the tradition of Harry Potter and The X-Men that conjures a mythical, magical meta-universe in which the evil sorcerer Prospero is willing to do anything to recover his stolen book of magic—even if it means Manhattan’s destruction. Lucky for us, New York’s defenders include a quartet of unlikely heroes: Melanie Porter, a plucky, raven-haired dramaturg with the ability to free characters from plays; Caliban, Prospero’s hunky (though not-too-bright) son; Tisiphone, a revenge-seeking Fury from Ancient Greece; and a seventeen-year-old lifeguard from Coney Island named Chet Baxter. May the forces of evil beware…
“[ROUGH MAGIC is] engaging…a highly entertaining spectacle that takes an appreciative audience across the gamut of emotions, and closes with an ominous ending that, like the best comic fantasies, sets the seeds for its sequel…There’s more than just horror—there’s romance, heroism, and plenty of camp.” —Ithaca Times.
“Have you already seen every action movie that’s out this summer, and are you numb from all those car chases and explosions? Head over to ROUGH MAGIC for an adventure more original than anything Hollywood has done in years…Despite his obvious influences from movies and comic books, Aguirre-Sacasa has written a play that is really more about the power, and quite literally about the magic, of theater.” —Ithaca Journal.
“Aguirre-Sacasa’s darkly funny takeoff on The Tempest is a neat little juggler’s trick, a shoutout to the Bard, the theater business, and comic books all at once; there’ s a nod to the Greeks here, a hat-tip to the Broadway musical there, and shameless lifts from Shakespeare left and right. Theater History 101, in other words, gets sliced and diced and slotted into an unrepentantly meta adventure featuring a monstrous villain, his nasty henchmen, and a team of motley misfits scrambling to save the world.” —Washington City Paper.
