‘Mars’ back on the stage in Hermon

Stephen Typaldos promised he would write a musical for his daughters. “Next year,” he said to them when they asked when he would do it. Meanwhile, he was busy writing books and building his medical practice. When they asked again, he said it again: “Next year.”

After a few years, the girls stopped asking their father about the musical. That caught his attention. Next year became now, and Typaldos’ first full-scale musical, “Maine Girl On Mars,” was performed in the summer of 2002 at the Grand Auditorium in Ellsworth. His daughter Brooke played one of the roles.

Immediately after the run,

Typaldos got busy with a second version of his original story about Trudy, a futuristic Bangor girl who decides to study botany at the College of Interplanetary Studies on Alpha Station on Mars. In the sequel, “Maine Girl Back on Mars,” which runs July 30-Aug. 1 at the Hermon High School auditorium, Trudy is called back to Mars 10 years later because giant grapefruits are threatened by mutant Martian fruit slugs.

“I wanted a story based on love – one in which everyone respects one another and follows their dreams,” said Typaldos, founder of the Osteopathic Extremity Clinic in Brewer. “Even in other musicals, I didn’t like the negative things, the bad guys, the triumphs over others. I wanted to write something about a teenage girl fulfilling her dream to go to Mars. I didn’t want her to be a hero, just a regular girl from Bangor. But this is a love story, too, with a twist at the end.”

Typaldos said that his work as a physician informs his work as a playwright, director and composer, professions for which he has had no formal training. He does not regularly attend local shows or perform in bands. He plays some trumpet and a little piano. It’s more likely that you’d catch him traveling to Japan or Europe to deliver a paper on healing rotator cuffs than practicing musical notation.

The music, he said, comes from the same type of thinking he has developed in his medical practice, a way of looking at the traditions with new eyes.

“I think that music is the language of emotion,” Typaldos said. “It expresses the self and helps us understand others. If you don’t understand music and the emotional part of it, it’s like being colorblind. I’m not musically talented, but to put this play together, I have to do all the things I do at my regular job: think creatively, brainstorm, motivate people and bring them to their roles through magic and emotion.”

Matt Madore, a music teacher who is in the production, said the story is great for kids. The score, he added, is less complicated than in other musicals, but it’s also very fun.

“It’s not very melodic and there’s no harmony, but, for someone who has no musical background, Steve has done a wonderful job,” said Madore, a trained opera singer. “He had a dream, and he made it come true. I always like seeing that. His philosophy is to get a bunch of people together to have some experience in doing a musical, and that’s what it is.”

Typados’ daughters have moved on to other pursuits, but the lesson they learned from their father took them to Mars and back. Now, said Typaldos, it’s time for another trip.

“Maine Girl Back on Mars” will be performed 7 p.m. July 30 and 31 and 2 p.m. Aug. 1 at the Hermon High School auditorium. For information, visit www.mainegirlonmars.com. Alicia Anstead can be reached at 990-8266 and aanstead@bangordailynews.net.