Student theater company offers new view of Medusa with musical, ‘A Legacy of Stone’

In recent years, scholars and artists have offered new looks at some old villains: The monstrous female figures of myths, legends and fairy tales. "Wicked" gives us a sympathetic view of the Wicked Witch of the West from "The Wizard of Oz," while Sleeping Beauty's nemesis Maleficent has been presented in a more positive light in the most recent film franchise.

Medusa, a figure from much further back in history, is now undergoing a similar reexamination. Her distinctive look, with snakes emerging from her scalp where there should be hair, has terrified people for millennia. So has her terrifying superpower: One glance by her can turn anyone into stone.

It's the stuff of nightmares, to be sure. But how did she get that way? Ancient accounts, such as Ovid's Metamorphoses, tell us Medusa was beautiful before being cursed. How did she become a timeless symbol of female rage?

That question is explored in the new musical "A Legacy of Stone," which UC Santa Barbara student-run Shrunken Heads Production Company will stage Oct. 16-18 in Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall on campus. The work was created by composer/lyricist Chelsea-Cameron Hastings, a fourth-year composition student at the College of Creative Studies.

So why did Hastings want to write a Medusa musical in the first place? "It was kind of inspired by my mom - in a good way!" said the Bay Area native. "The character of Medusa I have painted is very much inspired by the strength I see in my own mom, along with the kindness and joy she spreads.

"My mom's favorite holiday is Halloween," they added. "I grew up loving witches and other emblems of female power which have gotten demonized. When I was about 16, she dressed up as Medusa for one Halloween. So I had that image in my brain!"

As a composer, Hastings points to such influences as the late Duncan Sheik (she calls his "Alice by Heart" one of her favorite musicals), and Anais Mitchell, creator of a hit musical also based on Greek myth, "Hadestown."

"There are also some references to Lin-Manuel Miranda - specifically in the character of Hermes, who raps in a British trap style," Hastings added. "I hadn't written in that style before, but it fit the character really well."

"A lot of people in Shrunken Heads are STEM majors," she said. "It is a great outlet for people who wouldn't normally get the chance to do musical theater. I think some of the most impactful art sometimes comes from people who do not make it their career."

Hastings, who very much does want to make a career in music, came to UC Santa Barbara as a singer-songwriter.

"When I first got to the College of Creative Studies, one of my professors mentioned that someone (in the program) had written a musical years ago. In about five seconds, I decided that's what I wanted to commit three years of my life to.

"I spent my first year here writing the book, the vocal score and the piano score. My second year, I orchestrated it, and workshopped it with a cast. Last year, my junior year, we put on a showcase production featuring about an hour and a half of the full script. I then pitched it to Shrunken Heads, which chose it as the first show of their first three-show season."

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