The Antelope Party

Pony up, America! Equestria is a land of friendship. Equestria is a land of magic. Equestria is Ben's apartment in rural Pennsylvania. Every Tuesday night, Ben hosts "The Rust Belt Ponies Meet-Up Group for Adult Fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic." Sharing fun with these friends is a wonderful place to be. After all, nothing bad can happen in Equestria … But when an ominous neighborhood watch brigade starts patrolling the streets, fear and paranoia creep into the circle of friendship. The outside world is turning more violent and authoritarian, and it is sucking our heroes into an entirely different story. A timely new comedy that explores the rise of a new social order and how the currents of history, normalization, and fear can sweep up even the most generous bronies."[THE ANTELOPE PARTY] uses a classic movie thriller structure to explore the potential real-world dangers of wish-fulfillment fantasy groups … By taking various precautions — part childish desire to protect their cool little club, part survival response to actual danger — the group believes itself impervious to outside forces. But THE ANTELOPE PARTY crafts a clever little awakening for them, and anyone who shares their belief that there is safety in numbers." —Juan A Ramirez, The New York Times, Critic's Pick"'Friendship is magic' is the motto of characters in both the animated children's series My Little Pony and Eric John Meyer's subtly chilling comedy THE ANTELOPE PARTY … Meyer's story about a group of lonely outcasts reminds us that acceptance and community can indeed be magical — but sometimes magic can be dark." —Carey Purcell, Time Out New York, Recommended"Where have you gone, Princess Celestia? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you. And we need the Elements of Harmony now more than ever. If you got those references, then you've probably spent time with the animated series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. If, as a grown-up, you've created costumes based on characters from the show and congregated with other like-minded fans, then you're probably a 'brony.' Brony culture (captured in the 2012 documentary Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony) is the jumping-off point for Eric John Meyer's THE ANTELOPE PARTY. But Meyer's story jumps the fences and heads for the open range of American populism and paranoia. It's set in a Rust Belt Pennsylvania mill town — the kind of place where one expects the local diner to be stuffed with a mix of hardscrabble former steelworkers and national reporters interrogating them about their voting preferences over bacon and eggs. It's a place where the misfit brony men and 'pegasisters' who gather every week to share stories and play games based on the Hasbro series walk warily outdoors, their 'cutie marks' covered up, lest they be jumped by the intolerant. If we've learned one thing about how fascism works (and brother, are we learning a lot), it's that elevating tribal grievances over harmony and creating a hated Other is the path to power. So when Maggie, the glamorous 'Twilight Sparkle' of the gang, twists their arms (or forelegs) to join with her father's 'Antelope Party' (a neighborhood watch group with darker political aspirations), things take a sharp turn for the allegorical. Meyer has an undeniable flair for illustrating how group dynamics shift once the fear factor enters the room…" —Kerry Reid, Chicago Tribune"The show starts with a comically underattended gathering of the Rust Belt Ponies Meetup Group, complete with homemade costumes and wistful misfits. But from there Meyer takes an odd, fascinating turn: the neighborhood where the misfits meet has become an outpost for a watch group that evolves into a militant political organization with an arcane, quasi-Wagnerian mythology. Meyer is brilliant at showing how fantasy play may produce a brony or a neo-Nazi…" —Tony Adler, Reader Read more