The 2014 staging of Unbound Productions’ “Wicked Lit” (now through November 8) at Mountain View Mausoleum and Cemetery is one of the Halloween season’s most spectacular theatrical shows. As with previous years, it’s really three shows in one—four, actually, given that the lighthearted wrap-around story (“The Spirits of Walpurgisnacht”) isn’t […] Read more
The natural descendant of theater’s long-running tradition of Southern Gothic family-based plays, DUMMIES is what you’d expect of Zombie Joe’s Underground Theater—unsettling, organic, complex storytelling that eagerly acknowledges the fourth wall without ever breaking it. Over the top from its very first minute, the play is a twisted goulash of […] Read more
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Arf-8fVyJE[/youtube] Kevin Saunders Hayes’ production of “The Phantom of the Opera” is called “an explosive mash-up of music, dance, technology and silent film” for a reason—it really is a propulsive, exciting way for modern audiences to connect with one of the greatest horror films of all time some 89 years […] Read more
Ever get really scared at the theater? Not of ticket prices or parking in an iffy neighborhood, but get that creeping sense of menace that you’re living a horror story? That’s the kind of mood and jolts that you get with the one-two punch of “The Shadowy Third” and “The […] Read more
“Lovecraft: Nightmare Suite” (currently playing at the Lex in Hollywood, CA) is an H.P. Lovecraft fan’s dream—literally and figuratively, as it presents a remarkably faithful adaptation of some of the 20th century horror giant’s best-loved short fiction, all wrapped up in a fitful, shadowy dream-narrative wraparound (starring HPL himself, played […] Read more
Germaine (Natasha Charles Parker) feeds her brother Baby (Torrey Halverson), who wears a diaper and sleeps in a crib; looking on are (from left) sister Alba (Maison Leigh), Mama Wadsworth (Frank Blocker), and social worker Ann Gentry (Jana Wimer) in a scene from The Visceral Company’s production of THE BABY, now playing at the […] Read more
Visceral Company is kind of a broken record (if anyone still gets that technological reference)—one great show after another, each in a different way. Producer Drew Blakeman and director Dan Spurgeon have a good eye for material and a deft hand at staging, and their current production of Kill Me […] Read more
Every kind of storytelling implies a connection between the audience and the people in the story, good or bad. Hitchcock was a master of making the audience complicit in his killers’ crimes, and every heist movie you’ve ever seen has made you sweat for the bad guys, wondering if they’d […] Read more
