Keating, Cassidy Flynn, and Rachel Tibbetts Chat About CLASSIC ADVENTURE MOVIE; OR NEVER SAY DIE

Merriam-Webster defines nostalgia as “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition,” or “something that evokes nostalgia.”

This season, several directors have leaned heavily on nostalgia to pull on the heartstrings of theatergoers. Most recently Maggie Burrows aged the characters in Jersey Boys using older actors to represent the music icons when they were being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Night after night, the audience rose to their feet, buying into Burrows stagecraft and believing for a short moment that original members of band were on The Muny stage. The audience’s overwhelming sense of nostalgia allowed them to buy in.

New Jewish Theatre’s recent production of The Heidi Chronicles used decades old video footage and music to tell Wendy Wasserstein’s semi-autobiographical play. The images and music, selected by director Ellie Schwetye, intentionally invoked nostalgic emotions especially for the Baby Boomers in the audience

Next month STAGES St. Louis will open Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, a lovely show about songwriter and recording artist Carole King that relies on a nostalgic songbook to fill theater seats. Midnight Company’s Joe Hanrahan’s JUST ONE LOOK, based on the songbook of Linda Ronstadt, has been selling-out The Blue Strawberry for over three years and continues it to run. Nostalgia, it seems, is a strong emotional hook for a theater audience.

It was during a recent 3:00 am viewing of the 1985 adventure film The Goonies that repertory members of Slightly Askew Theatre Ensemble (SATE) began talking about how nostalgic memories invoke simpler times. Times when cares seemed insignificant and worries could be washed away with a cold glass of Kool-Aid.

It was out of that nostalgic viewing of Goonies that SATE’s next experimental theatrical work, Classic Adventure Movie: or Never Say Die, was born. SATE’s Rachel Tibbetts, Cassidy Flynn, and Keating conceived the idea for Classic Adventure Movie and Keating was tapped as playwright. Flynn, Keating, and Tibbetts sat down with Broadway World to talk about how they developed their fun new play.

Tibbetts told Broadway World, “We are using the narrative of Goonies to explore how important nostalgia is in these challenging times. Our play examines how revisiting memorable movies can help us fight forward in times where we all feel uncertain.”

“In 2019 we conceived and wrote a play called Classic Mystery Game that was a parody of CLUE and other mystery games. We had so much fun doing that show that we started talking about other movies that we love,” says Keating. “Watching the Goonies birthed this idea of a parody based on adventure movies.”

The show was cast much earlier than SATE normally casts a show. The ensemble has been meeting for months to get to know each other as actors, create the show, and understand importance of nostalgia in storytelling. “Much of the text that the audience will hear was generated organically during those workshops,” says Tibbetts.

When asked about playwriting Keating confessed that it is very lonely process. “It feels like the antithesis of theater because it is a solo project that is being created for a group. I watched The Goonies so many times. It is one of my favorite movies.”

Keating found the original script and said that it had many differences from the finished version of movie. “I incorporated some text from the movie, some from the script that I’d found, and quite a bit from the cast’s group think that occurred during our monthly meetings.”

Flynn talked about how this new work exists withing the cannon of SATE’s existing shows and intellectual property (IP.) “It leverages a crowd source model where we pull in dialogue, stories, and experiences from real people. Keating has done a beautiful job of weaving all those elements through the play,” says Flynn. He believes that people will enjoy this show even if they’ve never seen The Goonies. “I think people will leave feeling very tickled, and lighter.”

“There is a book written by playwright and theater artist Sarah Ruhl called 100 Essays that I Don’t Have Time to Write. One of the essays is titled Calvino and Lightness. It talks about how some view being light as shallow or hollow because it lacks heft and weight.” Flynn continued, “Ruhl argues just the opposite, that comedy is a powerful tool to use.”

When asked what words describe Classic Adventure Movie; or Never Say Die, Tibbetts and Flynn threw out words like joyful, heartfelt, clever, nostalgic, fast, and manic. Keating said, “I only need two, dumb and fun.”

Tibbetts will direct the cast of 13 actors. In addition to Keating and Flynn, the ensemble includes some of St. Louis’ most gifted theater artists including Ashwini Arora, Courtney Bailey, Katie Donnelly, Frankie Ferrari, Ricki Franklin, LaWanda Jackson, Anthony Kramer, Hailey Medrano, Victor Mendez, Carly Overly, Jr., and Marcy Wiegert.

The three think audiences will enjoy Classic Adventure Movie; or Never Say Die because it will invoke positive memories. The script references many other classic adventure movies like Star Wars and Indiana Jones. “There are references for the babies of the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and the 2000’s,” says Flynn.

Flynn again quoted Sarah Ruhl reading from her essay, “lightness is a philosophical choice to temper reality with strangeness. To temper the intellect with emotion.” He said, “That is the thesis of our play.”

Keating agreed saying, “Sharing Nostalgic experiences promotes a sense of connectedness with others.”

Classic Adventure Movie; or Never Say Die will run Thursdays – Saturdays from September 11 – 27, 2025 at The Chapel. Tickets can be purchased, and more information can be found by clicking the link below or by visiting SATE’s website at satestl.org.

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