Steve Ferchaud’s superhero-inspired stage play is descending on Paradise
By Sam DeLong
Steve Ferchaud is a well-known local artist, illustrator and muralist. He can also add playwright to that list. CaptainMan opens June 4 at Theatre on the Ridge and it’s the 50-year-old brainchild of Ferchaud and friend, Aaron Standish.
The show is one of several plays Ferchaud wrote and co-directed with Standish between 1976 and 1987. The young Ferchaud first met Standish in Red Bluff, when he was selling some comics. The two bonded over a mutual love of comics collecting. He later began crafting the play as a creative writing assignment while in high school.
CaptainMan first debuted in 1978 in Red Bluff, with Ferchaud playing the title character and Standish portraying the hero’s sidekick, Cockatoo the Fairly Decent. The current production is based on a rewritten version that debuted in 1984. While he frequently collaborates with Standish on comedy bits, he confirms that the superhero play is his passion project.
Standish is also known to the North State community as one of the founding members of Merry Standish Comedy, a local improv troupe that has been entertaining audiences since the 1990s.
Today, Ferchaud’s home studio remains a tribute to the classic heroes that inspired him since high school. Originally from Red Bluff, he moved and resided in Paradise for more than 20 years. With a brief relocation to Chico following the Camp Fire, Ferchaud is now back in Paradise.
The local artist illustrated A Carpenter’s Legacy: A Christmas Story, which was profiled by the Chico News & Review in 2019. In addition, Ferchaud has illustrated more than 40 children’s books and is the writer/illustrator of My Name Is Haley and I Live in Paradise, the story of a 14-year-old Camp Fire survivor.
Although part of his comic book collection was lost in the 2018 Camp Fire, members of the community helped him replace some of his treasured books. Among his favorite collectibles are Incredible Hulk #181 and Giant-Size X-Men #1, the former featuring the first appearance of popular Marvel Comics hero Wolverine.
“My home studio has a special rack with some of my favorite vintage comic books. I get to show my nerdy side,” Ferchaud said. “I took a lot of inspiration from the Adam West Batman series and wanted to make it funny, like the old Saturday Night Live skits from that era.” The play follows CaptainMan and his sidekick in a comedic parody of golden age superhero stories.
“It’s a murder mystery. There is a body found in a penthouse, and our heroes, CaptainMan and Cockatoo the Fairly Decent, are trying to solve the crime in their own clumsy way,” Ferchaud reveals. The play also draws inspiration from classic pulp detective stories such as The Shadow, while poking fun at themes of murder, mystery, and intrigue in a tongue-in-cheek fashion.
CaptainMan will run at Theatre on the Ridge from June 4 through June 21. It’s co-directed with Theater on the Ridge veteran Judy Clemens. Now the Executive Director of TOTR, Clemens has been performing and directing with the Paradise theater company since it first opened its doors in the 1970s.
As for any future productions, Ferchaud is cautiously optimistic.
“We’re going to wait and see how this one does,” he said. “Aaron and I have been kicking around the idea of rewriting some of our old plays, updating them and modernizing them. We’ll see.”
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