If you’ve seen Jason Neulander recently, you may have noticed a slight change in his appearance. A mainstay of the local stage, a film director, and the creator of old-timey pulp cross-media smash The Intergalactic Nemesis, he’s now sporting a huge, bushy moustache. It’s the kind of moustache that would become coated in brine on the open seas. It’s roguish, gleeful … one might even say, a tad piratical.
That’s what makes it so perfect for his latest project: what he calls a live-action graphic novel adapting the eternally beloved tale of high-seas skullduggery, Treasure Island, for modern audiences and modern stagecraft. This weekend, at Staple! The Independent Media Expo, alongside animator, artist, and erstwhile Austin Chronicle cartoonist Lance Myers and local filmmaker Skye Wallin, he’ll be part of Working Across Mediums panel. This will be the first chance for audiences craving bold escapades to get their first glimpse of Treasure Island Reimagined: Jane Hawkins and the Pirate’s Gold. “This will be the very first in-person thing that I’ll do for the show,” said Neulander.
Like Intergalactic Nemesis, Treasure Island Reimagined is truly cross-media, starting with a graphic novel: scripted by Neulander, with art by Johnny Dombrowski, color by Lee Duhig, and lettering by David Hutchison, it will go on sale later this spring. Then the live-action graphic novel version will premiere in Austin in the fall, in partnership with the Paramount. After that, Neulander and company will take the show on the road. Adventure, it seems, still awaits!
In some ways, this new show is direct kin to The Intergalactic Nemesis. A thrilling sci-fi pulp throwback, audiences fell in love with the stage show version of the story, where comic book images were projected on the screen and voice actors on stage performed the script live. The live version of Treasure Island Reimagined will do something very similar, bringing to vibrant, raucous and illustrated life the exploits of young Jane Hawkins, a 12-year-old working in a sleepy seaside inn on the coast of Scotland in 1754. Her world is turned upside down when a mysterious stranger washes up at the inn, sending her on a journey of peril and plunder.
Unlike many readers who fell in love with Robert Louis Stevenson’s yarn of gold, tropical paradises, and the treachery of the blackhearted Long John Silver, Neulander admits he didn’t actually read Treasure Island until he was an adult. Around 15 years ago, he said, “We inherited a really old copy from the 1920s, and I finally decided to read it.” This edition wasn’t simply the text: it had reproductions of N.C. Wyeth’s paintings for the 1911 edition “and tons of great, old vintage illustrations. I loved it.”
He found a new appreciation for the book five years later, when it became bedtime reading for him and his youngest daughter, Scarlett. “I read it aloud to her, and we both just got completely caught up in it.”
In the next few years, Neulander remained busy. He turned The Intergalactic Nemesis into an international touring fan favorite, playing on Broadway, at the Kennedy Center, and even the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He then finally brought that project in to land, and made the leap to movies directing his feature film debut, Fugitive Dreams. Then, in the summer of 2024, he was on a bicycle trip with stage producer Simon Shaw, who asked him if he would consider doing something like Intergalactic Nemesis again. Neulander’s first thought was, rather than creating a new story, he’d approach a classic tale, “a public domain adventure story. I brought it up with the family, and Scarlett just piped up immediately. ‘Dad, you’ve got to do Treasure Island.’ Well, OK!”
Jason Neulander will appear at Staple! The Independent Media Expo, April 11-12 at the Mabee Ballroom, St. Edwards University. Full details, lineup, and ticketing at staple-austin.org.
For more on Treasure Island Reimagined: Jane Hawkins and the Pirate’s Gold, including how to book it for your theatre, venue, or school, visit treasureislandreimagined.com.
