"The reputation of the Berkshires' being a hideout for artists is true," says Bobby Houston, an Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker (Mighty Times: The Children's March, 2004), who moved to Great Barrington a few years ago from his longtime home in California. "Castronauts was born in the Berkshires." Castronauts (which is debuting in New York City this month as part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival) is a zany new musical that Houston dreamed up with an old friend, Patricio Bisso, whom he met during the filming of the Kiss of the Spider Woman more than 20 years ago. It is the story an illegal Havana nightclub populated by drag queens and other night owls, where Fidel Castro is killed and the barflies must flee to Florida in a '56 Chevy outfitted as a boat. While the book writing was a long distance affair because Bisso lives in Buenos Aires, Houston found his composer, Randy Courts, down the road in his new hometown of Great Barrington. "The theater gods intervened," says Houston. "I discovered three miles from my home a man my age who dresses like I dress in white shirts and blue jeans and he was available. He wrote 18 songs in twelve weeks, which brings us today," says Houston, who is camping out in the city for the the run of the show, which he hopes will move to an Off Broadway theater. Castronauts is directed by Will Pomerantz, who staged the sold-out production of Gershwin's Of Thee I Sing at Bard this summer. "He is a rising star and this show is way below his level," Houston says happily. "When Will started giving our songs Broadway dances, I thought, This is the most fun I've had since being a grown up." Castronauts (Or How I Killed Fidel)The Zipper Factory Theater 336 West 37th Street, NYC; 212.352.3101 Through September 28
