October Theatre - It's all about the Scare Factor... Isn't it?

This October has quite a few cool options for those of you who like your theatre to have a Scare Factor! I must say, the Edmonton theatre community has really risen to the challenge this year! I was happy to catch 2 of them last week!

First up is A Party to Murder at Walterdale Theatre. I quite enjoyed the unwrapping of this Agatha Christie inspired story. It's a layered story and things are not as they seem, and it channels elements of And Then There Were None, but with a more modern take.  I was reminded a bit of Knives Out in that not everyone is who they seem to be. The twists and turns really start coming in the second act and it appears that everyone has a motive for murder, but just who did it is the question. Lots of laughs in this show too, mostly from the deadpan delivery of Erwin Veugelers as former football player, Willy. The whole cast is tight and you can tell that everyone is keeping secrets. When the whole thing spills out you'll be replaying earlier moments to see what you missed!  There's some great stage violence and a bit of blood, for those who like that, and a real sense of 'what will happen next?' at the end. It runs from October 9-19 with tickets running between $20-$30.  The show is directed by Sarah Spicer and features a top-notch cast of 6! Tickets can be purchased here. 

Teatro Live! is presenting The Woman in Black running from October 10-27 with tickets running between $25-$42. In Edwardian London, a young actor helps a lawyer make sense of a long ago encounter with a mysterious apparition who invariably leaves death in her wake. Together the two men conjure the mysterious marshland of northeastern England and its population of haunted characters. The show features Julien Arnold and Geoffrey Simon Brown and is directed by Andrew Ritchie.  This show was excellently executed with jump scares eliciting screams from the audience. The woman in black appears suddenly and in a disturbing way more than once - the magic created by superb lighting.  Ritchie has directed a terrific piece of theatre  that moves (once you get past the first 15 minutes which set up the convention of telling the story). The world is created in a old empty theatre, but it is not hard to imagine that various locations from the busy London street, to the train ride, to the haunted house in question. Even the house itself is simply but powerfully created from a scrim and boxes and a door. A chest becomes a desk and through the power of expert storytelling, we believe it. The inevitability of the horrible ending creates an anguished anticipation and a hope that all will be well with our loved ones too! Tickets can be purchased here. 

There are other shows coming up with a high creepy factor too:

A new company, Putrid Brat, presents The Maids by Jean Genet. Two young women toiling in servitude escape into sensual fantasies of luxury, violence and revenge in Jean Genet’s masterpiece. Loosely based on the notorious and shocking case of the Papin sisters who murdered their employer’s wife and daughter, The Maids explores the line where fantasy and reality blur and the stories we weave become indistinguishable from the truth. The show runs October 24-Nov 3 and tickets are $21.69 with options for PWYC. Tickets can be purchased here. 

Stranger Sings! The Parody Musical is a hilarious ‘upside down’ take on the hit Netflix series – and all its campy 1980s glory. Mike, Eleven, Lucas, Dustin, and the whole Hawkins gang have a night of adventure, thrills, pubescent angst, heavy synth, poor parenting, convoluted love triangles, cheap effects, dancing monsters, and maybe, just maybe justice for everyone’s favorite missing ginger, Barb Holland. The show runs from October 18-26 at the Backstage Theatre. Tickets are $30-40 and can be purchased here. They are selling fast, so move quickly! 

A Week of Late Nights - Auditions for Nine!

Last weekend were the official auditions for Nine (playing at Walterdale in July). On the roster were over 65 people which made me very happy. A large turn-out meant that we would have a lot to choose from to make the best possible cast. Well, not only were there many, but there a lot of really strong auditioners! This meant that we had 2-6 possibilities for each of the roles we were calling back and a large group of people from which to construct the cast. I had to say NO to a lot of strong people - we looked at all three areas (singing, acting and dancing) as determiners, as well as scheduling (always a challenge with busy, talented people). After all was said and done we got a cast that I am thrilled to work with. The hardest part for me is the NOs. There are people I do not have that were absolutely brilliant. There are some that are newer and less experienced and therefore a little less polished in their audition and hopefully they come back and I will get to work with them in the future as I saw great potential. In any case, that is done and yesterday we had a fabulous read-through with our cast and I could already see that many of them had brought choices to what they were going to do. I cannot wait to hear this group sing together. The music is challenging but these guys can handle it. An interesting thing is that of this group there are only a couple that I have directed before and it is about 50-50 people I knew before and people I didn't know. We really made an effort to cast based on the auditions we saw.

I must comment, however, I do have a Blog Post coming about Auditions Dos and Don'ts. There are people who really jeopardized their being cast by playing a little too much in the Don't column. I have to think about it though, as I have held auditions for a number of shows and I want to collect my thoughts.

The other thing I did this week was check out Cowardly Kiss Theatre's The Maids playing at the Catalyst Theatre. The play is a dark little piece, directed by Andrea Beca, about 2 maids (Sarah Horsman and Louise Large) who role-play and plot the murder of their employer (Madam, played by Zachary Parsons-Lozinski). Beca's production concept emphasizes the twisted nature of the two sister-maids with specific physicalization and costume and make-up. The script itself feels a titch slow at first, but you understand the need for it later in the piece as it sets a lot of the story up. All three actors commit totally to their choices and it was really quite interesting to watch. Horsman is electric onstage in her monologue and she and Large work well together as the sisters, and Parsons-Lozinski always looks as though he should just live onstage all the time - he is so natural there, even in the campiest roles. It's an edgier piece, one you think about a lot afterwards, and provides a good contrast to more mainstream theatre. It runs until next weekend. Check it out!

* The Maids is #17 in my 2012 Theatre Goal.