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Back in early October of 2006, my friend Barry York noticed an unusual posting in the weekly entertainment section of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. A local theater group in Collinsville, Illinois, had put out a casting call for a stage production of Night of the Living Dead!
Now I've always been a big horror movie fan. Growing up in Cleveland, even my parents stayed up to watch the antics of the horror host Ghoulardi, who every week featured wonderful schlock such as Attack of the Giant Leeches, Curse of the Puppet People, The Tingler, and many others.
I first had a chance to see George Romero and John Russo's 1968 masterpiece Night of the Living Dead at a midnight show around 1976. When the film finally came to town, AM radio was saturated with ads promoting it. "What if the dead all returned?" the radio spots menacingly. "What would they do? What would they eat? AAA -- HAHAHA! THEY'D EAT -- YOU!!!"
Well, I rather doubted that Romero would leave his usual stomping grounds of Pittsburgh to make a horror movie in my city of St. Louis. I figured this might be my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to portray a flesh-eating ghoul, so I'd better grab it. I called the director, Shelly Steuart, and she said that most of the speaking parts had already been cast, but that there was always room for more groaning, shambling zombies.
I made the 26-mile drive the next evening over to Collinsville for the audition. The town is affectionately known as the horseradish capital of the U.S., has a unique water tower shaped like a bottle of ketchup, and is the town where Michael Stipe of REM went to high school.
The play would take place in Collinsville's Miners' Theater, a 110-year old building registered as a historical landmark. It was an active movie theater until 1984; my wife Patty actually saw the original Dawn of the Dead there. More recently, it has been the home of "Encore at the Miners," a troupe that has done productions like Godspell and Peter Pan.
When I got inside, I was amazed at just how good the theater looked. There was a nice concession stand up front, plush seating for several hundred, and the wall plaster and carpeted aisles were in terrific shape. The well-lit stage had small curtained alcoves on both the left and right side.
I introduced myself to Ms. Steuart, and explained that I wanted to play the part of "Father Lazarus," an undead Catholic priest. She liked the idea and immediately added me to the cast; I was a little disappointed I didn't have to demonstrate my skill at lurking, stalking, or sepulchral moaning!
Ms. Steuart explained Encore at the Miners generally put on a special Halloween show. While researching online, she discovered that Lori Allen Ohm had done a theatrical adaptation of Romero and Russo's controversial undead classic, and she then secured the rights and the script.
In the next few sessions, I got to know the whole cast of 25 pretty well. There were a several aspiring adult actors from the area, but most of the group was enthusiastic high school and college kids, plus a few children ranging in age from seven to twelve. At 46, I definitely was one of the most senior of the bunch.
The script followed the plotline of the film very faithfully. A group of quarrelsome people are besieged in an isolated farmhouse by hordes of reanimated flesh-eating dead. All of your favorite characters from the movie were included: terrified Barbara, her brother Johnny, the hero Ben, the Cooper family, and the lovers Tom and Judy. In addition, interviews and news broadcasts discussing the escalating zombie phenomenon were presented in the two stage alcoves.
The set primarily consisted of a single room, with a door on the right leading down steps to an area in front of the stage representing the basement of the farmhouse. The set also had a door and window on the left side, leading to an open space for staging the exterior zombie attack scenes.
Ms. Steuart had a great concept for the play's look: recreating the appearance of the original black and white film. Therefore, the paint used on the set, furniture, knickknacks, and actors' clothing was primarily white, black, or gray. Except, of course, for the fake blood.
Another innovation Ms. Steuart came up with was that the zombies wouldn't just remain on stage, but would also prowl through the audience! This same great concept was used by film director Ray Dennis Steckler to promote The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1964), for which drive-in employees put on monster masks to terrorize people in their cars.
The living dead in the play pretty much got carte blanche to improvise their performances, with one big exception. The zombies were forbidden to notice of the audience or to interact with them, until the very end of the program.
During rehearsals, the dead had to watch for as cues for when to reach threateningly through the window, fall back during explosions, and storm the farmhouse. In addition, we had to remember stay clear of the flash pots and amber spotlights that were ignited to simulate Molotov cocktails and a gas pump exploding during the attempted escape scene.
A real shotgun loaded with blanks was used for the scenes where the humans try to defend themselves against the corpses, and it let out a pretty startling roar. Now, you didn't want dead people to flinch, so it took a few performances just to get used to the noise. In addition, we had to learn to back away from the window at just the right moment when the gun was fired, as the hurtling debris from the blanks could still be dangerous.
Barry York and I took digital photos of many of the zombie movie posters I've collected, such as Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things and the classic double feature of I Drink Your Blood/I Eat Your Skin. We then put them into a slide show presentation which played on a laptop at the concession stand.
As the dates of the actual performances drew nearer, we started the dress rehearsals. Basically, I wore a dark sports coat and Dockers, and a black shirt on which I covered up a corporate logo with a small prayer card from my uncle's funeral. I originally had my wife's communion rosary around my neck, but when she became concerned it would get destroyed during the onstage carnage, I bought a huge silver cross from a Halloween costume store.
The zombie cast also included a nurse in a starched white uniform, a hippie in a headband (who still flashed the peace sign after death), a gangster in a pin-striped suit, and lots of kids in torn clothes (that their parents probably didn't care if they got makeup on).
I thought about buying a priest's collar from one of the local Catholic supply stores. However, I was trying to be economical, and just in case someone asked me what I wanted the collar for, I wasn't willing to risk excommunication. I finally just made one out of tape and printer paper.
One actor did invest in a rubber dismembered arm that the zombies could casually munch on during the show. And another fellow had an artificial severed leg he attached to his shoe, making it look like he was shuffling along on a shattered limb that dragged on the floor behind him.
During the last few rehearsals, we sparingly supplemented stage blood and dark eye shadow with fairly expensive theatrical makeup -- "cadaver gray" for the living dead, and "ivory white" for the imperiled humans. The ivory white was to enhance the monochromatic tone of the production. To tell the truth, it made the living folks look so pale, they actually appeared a little creepier than the ghouls.
Before the first actual show, I gave a brief benediction to the zombie cast before we got on stage. "Oh Lord, look with favor on your undead children," I said. "May our prey be slow, prone to sprained ankles, and juicily obese."
Yeah, I was really into it. Possibly not as much as the one "living" actor who said "You guys can REALLY bite me if you want. I don't mind!"
Fog machines had been positioned near the front of the stage. They were kept running until shortly before the start of the performance. We had already learned walking through the dry-ice fog tended to make the actors cough, and since zombies don't even breathe, that might look a little ridiculous.
The sound crew played a CD of the soundtrack music from the original Night of the Living Dead to set the mood. The music was then replaced with a loud squeal of something immense descending from space, and then a huge explosion. This was designed to simulate the crash of the "radioactive Venus probe" mentioned in the movie, which contaminates the earth and awakens the unburied dead.
Our Johnny and Barbara then showed up at the wood and cardboard tombstone marking their father's grave, also situated in one of the aisles. After Johnny delivered his famous "They're coming to get you, Barbara" line, the first zombie showed up, swiftly strangled Johnny, and chased Barbara up onto the farmhouse set.
Several other zombies then staggered down the aisles past the audience and up onto the stage, hammering at the farmhouse door. One of the monsters had been sitting in the audience all along, his features obscured by a large hat and raincoat. I bet his neighbors got a big surprise when he suddenly got up and began lumbering around.
I finally got out into the crowd and onstage after the initial siege on the farmhouse. Being a dead priest, with the remnants of theological training still lodged in my decaying brain, allowed me to perform all sorts of outrageous antics. I prayed at the grave of Barbara's father, gave the last rites to my fellow zombies, made the sign of the cross a lot, and wrung my hands entreating God to send out some of those pagan humans so that my congregation could snack on them.
I took a sort a blasphemous joy in hammering on the farmhouse wall with my cross to get inside.
Instead of the conventional shuffling, stiff-armed stereotype, I played my character a little differently. I was still slow, but tried to jerk my head, body, and appendages around in violent spasms like I was a marionette or someone with the worst case of arthritis ever! I rolled my eyes back in my head as much as possible so that only the white corneas were visible, until that began to give me a headache and I was bumping into stuff.
The other players were equally creative. A number of them walked directly into walls or purposely stumbled and collapsed on the ground. This activity got an interesting response from the audience: some of them actually got out of their seats to help the zombies back up! In addition, whenever a zombie advanced towards a row of occupied seats, the people weren't sure whether to stay put or stand up to let the creature through.
As you might expect, sometimes the actors got a little too enthusiastic about pounding on the walls, and almost knocked over the entire set! I stumbled once during the gas pump explosion scene, and nearly brought down the house -- literally.
The play had an ending very similar to the film, but with a scary little twist added. Of course, everybody in the farmhouse gets killed either by the living dead or by overzealous vigilantes shooting everyone in the head. When the posse finally arrived inside the farmhouse set and surveyed all of the corpses, suddenly a bunch of zombies who have been in hiding burst through the doors and have the lawmen as dessert.
My one complaint about being in the play was the quality of food my character got to enjoy. There were several very attractive women in the cast, but during the final invasion, I never managed to get anywhere near them. Somehow I always wound up pretending to be chomping on the same guy's ankle at the end of every show.
At the play's conclusion, director Steuart used an innovative gimmick. The sound crew tolled a single bell, and all the zombies froze in the midst of gobbling down the hunting party. Another bell sounded, and the creatures stood up and for the first time took notice of the audience. A final bell was rung, and all the dead started shuffling toward the theater patrons with hungry looks on their ravaged faces. Then the lights went out.
We had four performances, with shows on the two Fridays and Saturdays prior to Halloween. Attendance was good, but the play never completely sold out. I myself had my wife, in-laws, buddies, and co-workers show up to cheer me on in my bloodthirsty rampage.
Amazingly, one of the biggest obstacles to the show during more business was also one of the best things that could happen to the area. The St. Louis Cardinals made it to the World Series and battled the Detroit Tigers for five games. At our third performance, the Cardinals won the series for the first time in 24 years. Lots of hand-held televisions lit the audience as actors onstage battled refugees from the cemetery.
The last performance had the very best twist. At the end, instead of the zombies simply moving towards the crowd, the lights stayed on, and the living dead jumped off the stage and playfully terrorized the audience up close. I refrained from devouring the people I knew, especially my wife, who had brought me flowers to celebrate my retirement from living death.
One five-year-old boy was in the lobby after the show with his parents. I wandered over, still in makeup and in my deepest voice said "Excuse me. I am very hungry. Could I have some of your popcorn?" The little guy wound up hiding behind his folks, who were laughing hysterically. (I still feel a little guilty about that.)
For the wrap party, I brought an ice-cream cake, decorated with Halloween ghosts and jack-o'-lanterns. I may have cut it with the prop knife that little zombie Karen used to slaughter her mother in the basement; I'm not sure. (Nobody had a garden trowel like the ghoul girl used in the original movie.)
Of course, no one got any pay for this macabre adventure. But we all received a spent shotgun shell made into a necklace, with the words "Zombie Repellent" printed on them.
Participating in this wonderful tribute to Night of the Living Dead was a fantastic experience that I will always treasure. But I think my friend Barry best summed up my acting ability: "It's a good thing you were playing a zombie priest; you could never have been a dead rabbi. Way too much ham."