Synopsis

'Star Crossed' began it's life as a serious attempt at a musical that looked forward into the 21st Century. The 'serious' part did not last long and it soon became an affectionate take on all those space sagas that plagued us during the later years of the 20th century.

The action is set in the future in a galaxy not far away, and tells the story of Rocky and Ricky, friends since childhood and six months out of Star School. Rocky is the captain of the Starship Alpha Zee and Ricky is his junior Navigation Officer. The show follows the events of their journey from Starport 2120 towards Star City.

Princess Alena stows away disguised as one of six L-Grade Androids and is assigned as "L-C" to be Ricky's personal assistant. Thinking that his android cannot understand a human's finer feelings he confesses to L-C that he fell desperately in love at first sight with Princess Alena when he saw her a year ago. Two other stowaways, Bill and Bob have been sent by the evil General Garth to follow and find the Princess. They are discovered, but during questioning by Captain Rocky, General Garth arrives on a shuttle with his personal star troopers. He demands that the Princess is found, and to speed up the search he will use "mass interrogation by telepathy", a technique he learnt on Telemos 3. He tells Rocky that without certain 'background help' from the General, Rocky would have failed all his Star School exams. Not surprisingly, Rocky gives his immediate support to the General. The technique immediately reveals that the Princess is posing as L-C, at which revelation Ricky is mortified. She is led away to the ships cells to await delivery to her Father.

Whilst there she comes to realise that she has fallen in love with Ricky. He breaks-in to the cells and she tells him that she is to be married to Nodrog Shalf - an arranged marriage to forge a new commercial dynasty, but she doesn't like Nodrog and can't stand the thought of marrying him. The Imperator's shuttle arrives with his Imperial Highness and Nodrog Shalf on board. General Garth is commanded to bring the prisoner Princess to the Imperator, but the cell is discovered to be empty and the new arrivals are not pleased at all with this news. The Princess Alena, decides that she must confront her father, steps forward as L-C, reveals her true identity and says that she won't marry Nodrog under any circumstances. Realising that he is making a mistake, the Imperator sends Nodrog packing. The question is - who should marry the Princess now?

Alena and Ricky are overjoyed to be engaged, but Rocky is distraught at his change of circumstances from Prince to pauper. The Imperator though reminds him that the ships computer is not working and that he will have to "… look to the future …", take command and get them all home safely, as befits a Captain of Starfleet Command.General Garth confesses  that 23 years ago he placed two orphaned babies from a disintegrating planet into a foster home on Earth. One of these was a high-born Prince, the other the child of a common worker. Perhaps the Prince might be a useful substitute, especially as the General can produce him immediately! Rocky is commanded to step forward and be named as the Prince, but just as he is about to confirm that he does indeed have the royal birthmark on his leg, a massive technical failure shuts down the ships computer. Consternation now erupts as they realise they are all being dragged down into a black hole. Ricky steps forward and not only provides an ingenious way of restoring power to get away from the danger, but is revealed as the true Prince, complete with birthmark.

The musical is a fun two-act piece with easy-to-learn music and lyrics. It has 4m, 1f, 9m/f principal parts, plus as many androids, startroopers, passengers and crew as are available, up to a rough cast total limit of 30.

Characters

Songs