The Libertarian Party of Texas
in conjunction with
The Leonard Peikoff Foundation
and REASON Magazine
presents:
RONNY
A Rock Opera
Featuring:
TREY PARKER, vocals. TED NUGENT, guitar. PENN JILLETTE, bass. NEAL PEART, drums.
Act I, Part 1: “No Reason to Be Over-Optimistic”
The “Overture” plays, previewing the musical themes that will appear throughout the performance. The overture may be shortened for a fee of $40.00 per minute (refer to the scanners mounted on the back of each seat; BitCoin accepted). Todd Walker, an All-Star second baseman and captain in the Marine Corps, is missing and believed dead after single-handedly destroying an ISIS terror cell using only an aluminum bat. His widow, Mrs. Marine Todd, gives birth to their son, Ronny (“It’s a Boy, Sort Of”), and soon takes a lover: Howie Paul, a small farmer and venture capitalist who develops an app that allows people to have milk delivered to their doorstep for an extra fee during peak dairy usage hours. Years later, after being liberated by a group of private security consultants, Marine Todd returns home and discovers the two of them together. Citing the “stand your ground” defense, Howie shoots Marine Todd in the forehead 27 times. Ronny’s mother, in a panic, persuades the young boy that he did not see the shooting take place, making him deaf, dumb, and blind to practical political considerations (“2021”). Ronny now relies on his sense of economic freedom, developing a rich inner life (“Implausible Journey/Sparks”).
Act I, Part 2: “The Dumb Begin to Talk”
A quack doctor claims his wife can cure Ronny (“The Perfectly Respectable Hawker”), but due to burdensome and coercive F.D.A. regulations, they never get a chance to find out. Ronny’s parents are also increasingly frustrated that he is being exposed to the irrational mind control of religion by other children taking advantage of his loneliness and isolation (“Fuck Christmas”). In despair, Ronny’s parents begin to neglect him, and he is tortured by a sadistic economist (“Cousin Krugman”); a pharmaceutical treatment program fails to yield results because of the unasked-for interference of the D.E.A. (“The Acid Queen”). Ronny’s bizarre hallucinogenic fantasies are deepened when he reads a Braille version of The Fountainhead (“Underture”).
Act II, Part 1: “He Seems to Be Completely Unreceptive”
Though Mrs. Marine Todd expresses some trepidation about leaving young Ronny alone with a series of psychotic, unregulated babysitters (“Do You Think It’s All Right?”), Howie assures her that the invisible hand of the marketplace will eventually guide them to the proper child care solution as they dump the boy off with another abusive relative (“Uncle Petey”) — this one an alcoholic internet billionaire who discovers that Ronny has a talent for playing video games (“Warcraft Wizard”) despite his disabilities, and rents him out to a South Korean gold farming consortium. After paying a fair price to retrieve the boy, the Paul family engage the services of a physician (“There’s a Doctor I’ve Paid”), who agrees to swear out an affidavit stating that Ronny’s problems are psychosomatic instead of physical, so he will no longer be weakened by dependency on government disability subsidies. Finding a like-minded publisher of newspapers, Ronny’s mother arranges for an in-depth interview in the press (“Talk to the Mirror, Boy”), bringing out his natural long-windedness and recovering partial use of his faculties so he can become a powerful political leader (“Sensationalist!”). Through use of his highly effective race-baiting newsletter articles and mastery of alarmist claptrap (“Ronny, Can You Scare Me?”), he becomes a potent force, founding his own political party (“Smash the RINOs”).
Act II, Part 2: “Cleaning His Blue Rolls-Royce”
Word spreads of Ronny’s “Miracle Cure”, which is also available for purchase by members of the audience in the lobby or from competing vendors throughout the aisles of the theater. Ronny hires a clownish former senator from Wyoming as his advance man (“Alan Simpson”), who dresses as a tin can, dances spastically, and threatens to kick political opponents “right in the old gazoo”. His newly formed political party becomes a national success (“I’m (Economically) Free”), and he capitalizes his meteoric rise to freedom by founding a chain of hotels patterned after the Bohemian Grove retreat in northern California (“Ronny’s Campy Holiday”), as well as funding his dissipated Uncle Petey’s fleet of cruise ships/floating tax shelters (“Not Welcome”). Completely won over by his flawless and unimpeachable economic ideas, the entire country unanimously elects Ronny president of America (“We’re Gonna Keep On Taking It”), and lets him marry Miss Universe and they have a baby and the baby is also great and becomes president (“See Me, Feel Me, Unquestioningly Parrot Me”).
Curtain. Parking will not be validated.