Usually these days, it’s a little different.
Usually these days, it’s the amazing Chris Gibson playing the role of Mysterion (and quite a few others) in Jason Neulander‘s The Intergalactic Nemesis.
Which, if you’re gonna get any man to replace Shannon McCormick (who performed it back in the day) as that crazed master hypnotist, you’re wise to get someone as versatile and compelling and downright brilliant, voicewise, as Chris Gibson.
(We first learned of Gibson’s excellence back when Trouble Puppet‘s Fup Duck was running – and we hear that that show’s coming back, too, later this year.)
But when the Intergalactic Nemesis premiered the second part – Robot Planet Rising – of its trilogy at the Long Center this past Friday, Gibson was nowhere to be seen. Unless, of course, you were on set with him in the balmy clime of good old Florida: Then you would’ve seen him in the lead role of a feature film currently in production – which sort of involvement rather precludes, yes, a live performance in the season-ticketed heart of Austin, Texas.
Thus: Shannon McCormick, back for just that show in the role he’d made his own during the touring production’s early years.
Which allows us to wonder: Who is this Shannon McCormick, this bald-headed fellow who also runs Gnap! Theatre Projects and is half of the improv troupe Get Up and has appeared (at least briefly, and with a fake forelock) as a meth tweaker on AMC’s Breaking Bad?
Take a helluva long time to answer that question, of course.
So we’re not going to attempt it here.
However, McCormick fan or curious passer-by,
we’re pleased to point you to this lengthy interview
with the ever-busy man some know as Shando.
This article appears in June 8 • 2012.