The Prodigal
1993 · Triopia High School, Concord, Illinois
The Prodigal was an original full-length musical that Ken Bradbury wrote and directed on the Triopia High School stage in 1993. Set in a Western ranch and Southern frontier world, the show is built around two young leading men — "the Prodigals" — whom two girls long to see return home. A female lead, a crew of ranch hands and wranglers, and a line of dancing "Rangerettes" round out the story. It belongs to the same sequence of Ken's original Triopia musicals as MorningStar (1992) before it and Holy Moses (1994) and The Dogwood Boy (1995) after, and is listed among his hard-bound original full-length musicals in both the Frank Gaudy archive catalog and Ken's own resume.
Cast
- Kirk Strubbe — one of the two young male leads, "the Prodigals"
- Scott Stanberry — one of the two young male leads, "the Prodigals"
- Amanda Dinsmore — female lead
- Travis Deaver — Billy Ray, the little brother
- Jason Musch
- Carrie Hendricker
- Amanda Witte
- Jason Bumgarner
- Amy Hendricker — Shannon
- Troy Kirbach — Reno
- Jennifer Luttrell — Reno
- Kara Dufelmeier — Oletha
- Kelly Patterson — Babe
- Darlene Cernech — Billy Jean
- Melissa Jones
- Jacie Wessler — Willow
- Adam Ehlert — Crockett the wrangler
- Jacob Stock — wrangler
- Matt Kinsell — Shagbark
- Ben Trout ("Badger") — Cisco, a ranch hand
- Cara Meyer — a Rangerette
- Suzanne Kircher — a Rangerette
Production Notes
The two young male leads — "the Prodigals" — were Kirk Strubbe and Scott Stanberry, who teamed up for what Ken's theatre history calls "some of the most beautiful harmony ever heard on the Triopia stage." Travis Deaver played their little brother, Billy Ray; his duet with Kirk Strubbe was one of the show's highlights, remembered in a Foundation newsletter as "a very young Travis sitting on Strubbe's knee and singing in The Prodigal."
Carrie Hendricker and Amanda Witte "longed for the Prodigals to return home." Jason Bumgarner did "one of Triopia's most hilarious song and dance numbers wearing a steer's head," and Jason Musch became "the first actor to lose his pants on a Triopia stage." Curt Stinson handled the lighting.
No song titles have been recovered — none of the surviving sources name a song in The Prodigal (only the existence of the untitled Strubbe/Deaver duet is noted).