‘Floyd Collins’ brings a haunting true story to Mill Town Players

Phillip Rast has been waiting nearly a decade to play Floyd Collins.

Rast, who stars in the title role of the Mill Town Players’ production of “Floyd Collins,” first encountered the musical as a student studying musical theater at Coastal Carolina University around 2015. He quickly became fascinated by its music and its haunting story.

So when he learned Mill Town Players was producing it, there was little question that he would audition.

“I was like, oh my gosh, I’ve got to do this show,” Rast said.

“Floyd Collins,” with music and lyrics by Adam Guettel and a book by Tina Landau, is based on the true story of a Kentucky cave explorer who became trapped underground in 1925.

Collins was 37 when he died, and his plight became a national sensation. But the musical, running Oct. 2-11, is about much more than a man trapped in a cave.

“It deals with a lot of the deepest, darkest fears that people have,” Rast said. “What does it mean to be left alone? And what does it mean for your dream to come true but you never get to see it?”

Collins dreamed of finding a cave that would attract tourists and bring prosperity to his impoverished Kentucky community. But after he became trapped, the attention he had sought arrived in a way he could never have imagined.

His story became a media sensation, raising questions about fame, ambition and the price of turning tragedy into entertainment. The larger media story is “very much about the dangers of profiting off of trauma,” Rast said.

The production will incorporate projections and historic photographs from the rescue effort, designed by Rast himself, to help portray the media circus that descended on the rural Kentucky community.

Mortality and faith

The musical also leaves open a fundamental question about Collins: Was he a courageous dreamer or simply reckless? Rast sees him somewhere between the two.

He should not have entered the narrow passage where he became trapped, Rast said. But Collins was also trying to build a future for himself and his community during a time when tourism offered one of the few economic opportunities in the South where the 1920s were not roaring.

The music, Rast said, is another reason the musical is so unique. Guettel’s score combines American folk music and bluegrass, with what the composer has called “hill music.” Guettel, grandson of Richard Rodgers and a protégé of Stephen Sondheim, wrote music that is technically demanding.

For Rast, the role presents an extraordinary physical challenge. Floyd spends almost the entire musical trapped underground, meaning Rast performs most of the show lying down.

The music is even more demanding. It includes yodeling, unusual vocal effects and passages in which Rast must create the impression of singing with his own echo.

Throughout the ordeal, Rast, as Floyd, must balance terror with hope. The story ultimately becomes a meditation on mortality and faith. Its final song, “How Glory Goes,” asks the eternal questions that Floyd — and, Rast suggests, all of us — eventually must confront.