Generally speaking, creating unlicensed adaptations of film properties is frowned upon in local theater scenes. But sometimes, you get away with it by creating something super rad, which is what happened in the case of Alien: The Play, a full-length adaptation of Ridley Scott’s
Alien helmed by Perfecto Cuervo, an English teacher at North Bergen High School, alongside his student players.
And it is, indeed, fantastic. The elaborate production, built out of local materials, many of which were denoted to the school, manages to nail the creepy found future aesthetic of the original Alien film, down to a goofy but still kind of menacing xenomorph.
There’s even a trailer! They produced their own trailer! It’s fantastic!
Entertainment Weekly reached out to some of the people involved and paint a great picture of the whole production, which went viral this weekend after Mythbusters alum Adam Savage found and tweeted about how dang cool it looked.
I love that north bergen high school did alien last night as their school play, so I’m gonna keep tweeting about how great it is..everything was made from recycled materials .. so nuts amazing I’m so proud of my hometown pic.twitter.com/EEMEbankDz
— Andrew Fernandez (@bhsdrew) March 23, 2019
https://twitter.com/embed/status/1109375825089040385
https://twitter.com/embed/status/1109376274173181953
Even the official Alien franchise Twitter page took notice.
We are impressed! 40 years and still going strong… https://t.co/NJGJIZj2oq
— Alien (@AlienAnthology) March 23, 2019
“We are impressed!” they said. So are we.
If you had any ambitions of going to New Jersey and seeing the unauthorized adaptation, it’s unfortunately ended its run. Though after this, it might get an encore performance or two.
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