The StarKids discover a mysterious stone tablet.
"It appears to be a prophecy describing what the Mayans referred to as a troupe called 'Dikrats', and how they bring about the end of the Earth..."
—Jaime Lyn Beatty
Apocalyptour is the second national tour of Team StarKid, which is more story-driven than the SPACE Tour. The StarKids, having given up singing and dancing, have turned to their true passion of archeological digs until they unwittingly unearth the Mayan God of Chaos and Death, Ma'au Guurit who is ready to bring about the 2012 apocalypse. Fortunately, Ma'au Guurit is also the Mayan God of Musical Theater and gives the StarKids a chance to save the world by putting on a concert.
Apocalytour provides examples of the following tropes:
- Adaptational Villainy: This isn't Brian Holden's first time playing a villain, but unlike the Laughably Evil Junior, he manages to fill Tyler Brunsman's role as the supervillainous Lucius Malfoy with aplomb.
- A Day in the Limelight: As in the SPACE Tour, Darren Criss' absence means that his songs get split up between Brian Holden and Dylan Saunders, who up to this point had only played supporting roles in Starkid's full theatrical productions. (With Brian also replacing Tyler Brunsman as Lucius Malfoy, this is the highest percentage of onstage focus he's had in a Starkid production yet.) Arguably also this for Meredith Stepien, who gets an Award Bait solo number as Hermione in "The Coolest Girl in the World".
- Also one for Little White Lie as a production, specifically playing Grant Anderson's comic compositions given to the other bands on the show ("Fancy Machine" and "Love Grenade").
- Apocalypse How
- Arc Words: "Totally awesome!"
- After describing their current tour stop as "The Greatest City in the World!", Ma'au Gurrit then keeps describing every place she's planning to destroy as "The Greatest City in the World!"
- Bamboo Technology: Parodied — all of the instruments and sound equipment on stage are supposed to be ancient Mayan artifacts.
- Big "NO!": When Joe finds out that he won't be able to get his bubble tea from Japan anymore.
- Biting-the-Hand Humor: When Ma'au Gurrit asks the Starkids what crimes they committed to be condemned to be musical theatre performers, Dylan Saunders says he shoplifts from Whole Foods, while Joey Richter adds that he's appeared on Jessie.
- Bowdlerization: The version of "Me and My Dick" that opens the show hints that this concert will avoid swearing or overtly sexual themes, unlike the shows the songs come from. This quickly proves false.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Ma'au Guurit materializes an audience. Lampshaded of course.Brian H: There used to be a fourth wall there.
- The Cover Changes the Meaning: Several of the new song versions play with this, like "Guys Like Potter", which was very much Played for Drama in A Very Potter Sequel, becoming a peppy, snarky number — whereas by contrast all of the humor is removed from the Rogues Medley version of "It's Not Over Yet".
- In most of the concert versions of these songs, various comic or plot-related aspects of the song from the original musical have been dropped. (For instance, Lauren Lopez mostly drops her exaggerated Mexican accent from "Get Back Up".) YMMV if this makes these or the originals the preferred version.
- Curse Cut Short: The opening number version of "Me and My Dick" repeatedly cuts off the title line before "dick" — it's only completed when it unexpectedly gets a reprise at the very end of the show.
- Deadly Game: In Ma'au Gurrit's time, musical theatre always ended with the audience choosing their least favorite performer to be gruesomely executed. This makes perfect sense to the Dikrats.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Meredith Stepien first replaced Bonnie Gruesen as Hermione in the previous year's SPACE Tour, and reprised that role here before officially becoming Hermione in A Very Potter Senior Year.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Brian Holden gets called "B-Hole" to distinguish him from Brian Rosenthal, setting him up as a Butt-Monkey for "Guys Like Potter".
- Excuse Plot: Obviously, but still a surprisingly coherent mini-narrative compared to the narrative-free SPACE Tour.
- Lampshaded, when Brian confidently declares that the dialogue they're exchanging right now is certainly worth $35 plus taxes and fees.
- Funny Background Event: During the opening number ("Me and My Dick"/"Ready to Go") Brian Rosenthal and Dylan Saunders' verse has the girls sit in a line with Meredith's stuffed chimp picking lice off each other's hair and eating it.
- Human Sacrifice: Joey Richter
- Jar Potty: The opening number shows Joey Richter filling up a canteen with piss instead of water, then handing it to first Joe Walker, then Brian Holden to drink from, making them violently spit it out at the beginning of their verse of "Me and My Dick".
- Lady Looks Like a Dude: Margaret, played by Jim Povolo, though it's not entirely clear if she actually is female or the Dikrats are just rolling with the name.
- Mayan Doomsday: The whole inspiration for the theme of the tour — which is Artistic License – History. Includes the often-repeated misunderstanding that the date of the apocalypse was wrong because of "not accounting for leap years" as the reason Ma'au Gurrit mistimed the apocalypse.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Releasing the Mayan God of Chaos and Death from reading an ancient tablet.
- Pair the Spares: Played for Laughs and lampshading the gender imbalance of the Apocalyptour cast, with five guys and three girls — everyone else gets in a romantic mood after "The Way I Do" and pairs off to hook up backstage, leaving Joe Walker and Brian Rosenthal
no choice but to sing a duet together, "Different As Can Be".- A double example, since Dylan Saunders and Meredith Stepien played a couple in the show "The Way I Do" is from and Joey Richter and Jaime Lyn Beatty were the main couple in Me and My Dick, but pairing Brian Holden and Lauren Lopez is just an arbitrary way to get Joe Walker and Brian Rosenthal together.
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: Throughout the show, Ma'au Gurrit is already steadily destroying the world, but since they're parts of the world the Dikrats don't live in, they're mostly worried about their favorite foods no longer being available (pastries from France, bubble tea from Japan).
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: None of the Dikrats' efforts to appease Ma'au Gurrit work in the end, but it doesn't matter because Ma'au Gurrit has mistimed the date of the apocalypse anyway. (Of course, saving the world turns out to be less important than Putting the Band Back Together in the first place.)
- Shout-Out: Ma'au Gurrit's supervisor in the Mayan pantheon turns out to be Olmec, of whom she's an Expy (at least vocally).
- The process of removing Joey's heart is a reference to Operation.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Parodied. The Dikrats invite Ma'au Guurit to join their troupe as Jim Povolo's replacement since he's mysteriously gone missing since the beginning of this concert. (Because Ma'au Guurit is played by Jim.)
- Tom the Dark Lord: Ma'au Guurit (Margaret) the Mayan God of Chaos and Death.
- Villainous Breakdown: The way this concert uses "Guys Like Potter" followed by "It's Not Over Yet" seems to imply the other Starkid men's bullying of Brian Holden has driven him to this.
- Villain Song: The Rogues Medley is a compilation of three of these ("It's Not Over Yet" from A Very Potter Sequel, "Kick It Up A Notch" from Starship, and "Rogues Are We" from Holy Musical B@man!) and is one of the most popular songs from this concert. (In the context of the Excuse Plot, this is the Dikrats' He Who Fights Monsters moment.)
- You Have Failed Me: Ma'au Gurrit failing to start the apocalypse when she was supposed to led to the Mayan pantheon firing her and calling off the whole thing.
