romero Tag Archive

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July 31, 2012 • devious theatre

The Dead Walked

Yup, the clean up was a bitch in the end.

The amount of fake blood we left in the Watergate Theatre was fairly disgusting. Then again, when you’re performing the Irish stage debut of Night Of The Living Dead you’re going to have to expect a little bit of a mess. And what a glorious mess it was. 5 nights of zombie slaying and apocalyptic destruction as our 20 strong cast hit the stage with serious force every night.

All in all, it was a blast. We got the best audiences that we’ve ever had for any of our shows to date which was a great feeling. The place was really buzzing and it was so good to see so many people enjoy a piece of theatre like that. It wasn’t to everyone’s taste but that’s par for the course with anything that mixes horror, comedy and any amount of social commentary. It was great to see that the huge promo campaign we undertook for the show paid off. After all that new content we generated, it would have been a shame if it didn’t. Actually no, it would just have sucked. But hey, someone is paying attention anyway so that’s good!

The year I spent working on this went so damn quick… it’s insane really. The post show blues on a show of this scale are going to be a right bastard. I only wish we were in a position to tour Night Of The Living Dead. I’m confident that we have a fantastic show and with the right opportunities and support we could really have an amazing piece of Irish theatre that a wide audience can see. Unfortunately, the opportunities and support aren’t in place right now and so it’s back to the drawing board with the show.If you know of any wealthy patrons who love horror plays, send ’em our way.

I’m absolutely honoured and privilged to work with such an amazing team over the past couple of months. Between the cast and crew, I really couldn’t have had a better, more dedicated hard working bunch of people to work with. Particular props must go to my co-writer Connie Walsh who busted her ass on this show for over a year and did a sterling amount of work on making this play. The girl’s got talent and I can’t wait to see what she cooks up next.

So that’s Night Of The Living Dead put to bed for the moment at least. Thanks to everyone who came, funded and supported this show. It means the world to me and to everyone in the comedy. Most of all, it lets us keep on doing what we do. Phantasm is opening up at Abhainn Rí this week so there’s definitely no rest for my wickedness.

These shows, they won’t stay dead…

Photos by Ross Costigan (I stole his zombie cameo shtick)

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July 24, 2012 • devious theatre

The Night Of The Living Dead Rises…

Devious Theatre’s production of Night Of The Living Dead opens tonight in The Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny.

It’s the culmination of a massive year’s work and I can’t get my head around how quickly it’s arrived. You always think it seems so far away but no, it always creeps up on you. Like a zombie, aptly enough. But after a long, bloody birth, our biggest, nastiest baby to date is about to hit Kilkenny’s biggest stage for the first time.

Myself and Connie Walsh spent a long time working on the script for this one. It’s been a blast getting to play with the entire history of zombie fiction and I hope we’ve written something that pays respectful homage to it. We’ve tried to write a version of the story that’s new, fresh, funny and uniquely Irish whilst also staying close to Romero’s vision of the origins of an undead apocalypse. If you’re a fan of zombie fiction I’m confident there’s a lot you’ll like about this.

The cast and crew have been powerhouses all round as we bring our vision of the end of the world to an Irish stage for the first time. A director just couldn’t ask for a better team. Most of them are majorly tired and can’t get fake blood off their clothes so it helps to keep them sweet as much as possible.

Word from the box office is that we’re nearly sold out tonight which is a massive achievement and it will be amazing to play to a near full house for our debut performance of the show. It’s been a long haul to get here but finally, the first ever Irish zombie stage play and the Irish premiere of Night Of The Living Dead is ready to rise…. we hope to see you invade.

Night Of The Living Dead runs from tonight July 24th – 28th in The Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny. Bookings can be made on 056 – 7761674 or online here. Check out www.nightofthelivingdead.ie for more details.

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July 12, 2012 • devious theatre

They Won’t Stay Dead

The final character poster for Devious Theatre’s upcoming zombie smackdown Night Of The Living Dead went online last week. Now the collection is complete! I would hope the cool, youngsters of today will flock around town trying to collect the entire set, Panini sticker collection style. But then I realise that we’ll have wasted a lot of money and advertising. 🙁

This poster introduces Ben, the main character of both the play and original film, played by Eddie Murphy. You may notice that he’s not black but Romero said that wasn’t an issue in the original and we believe him so we’re going to stick to our guns here by casting white boy Eddie. Our version of the character originally played by Duane Jones is ironically a racist, sexist, foul mouthed, pissed off unemployed construction worker. Which in itself was a really good excuse to give him some handy implements to kill people with.

The show is now 2 weeks off opening and the pressure (and hype and expectancy) is really starting to amp up. Last night we went from one physically intense sequence to another so I guess my main concern at this stage is keeping the actors alive for long enough to do the play. Fingers crossed.

Night Of The Living Dead runs from July 24th – 28th in The Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny. Check out www.nightofthelivingdead.ie for more details.

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June 20, 2012 • devious theatre

It’s Important That Families Stick Together

The newest character poster for Devious Theatre’s upcoming production of Night Of The Living Dead introduces the Cooper Family.

Played by Paul Young, Nuala Roche and Abbey Harris, they are our version of Harry, Helen and Karen Cooper, the family holed up in the basement of George A. Romero’s 1968 original. One area where we haven’t deviated in this regard, is how poorly Karen is feeling. And as you can see from this family portrait, she’s looking a little bit off. Must be the flu.

We’re a week into rehearsals at this point and it’s going really well so far. I keep having to remind myself that I’m directing an epic zombie story. It’s an absolute treat. We’re juggling it with our other new play Phantasm (more on that later) which offers a nice small appetiser to the bloody main course that is Night Of The Living Dead. Dessert will be sleep.

Night Of The Living Dead runs from July 24th – 28th in The Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny. Check out www.nightofthelivingdead.ie for more details.

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June 11, 2012 • devious theatre

It’s Funny How We All Ended Up Here

Here’s our newest character poster for Night Of The Living Dead.

Frankie is a completely new character that doesn’t exist in the original film. Myself and Connie Walsh created him for the play because we needed an extra male character for certain plot points and to convey some of the Irish centric themes of the play. He’s played by John Kennedy and as you can see, he’s under a lot of pressure in this poster. For the concept of the poster, we went with the idea of Frankie trying to escape into an attic. We don’t really have basements in Irish stories so we changed it to a Stira for the purposes of the play. Also, the sticks for Stira’s are lethal if you flake someone with them. Especially in the head.

Night Of The Living Dead runs from July 24th – 28th in The Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny. Check out www.nightofthelivingdead.ie for more details.

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May 26, 2012 • devious theatre

Sever The Head Or Destroy The Brain

It’s all kicking off for Devious Theatre’s production of Night Of The Living Dead.

After launching the production with a character poster for Babs back in February, we’ve just released the second poster. This time it’s Tom and Judy, the teenage lovebirds of the original movie. Played by Kevin Mooney and Aoibhín Murphy, our version of the characters have a lot more attitude. They’re also very Irish. Which explains the hurl. It was very hard to write an Irish zombie movie and not use a hurl as a weapon. It’s also a pretty handy way to sever a head or destroy a brain, which as the movie tells us, is the only way to kill one of the living dead. So yeah, there’s going to be a lot of that going on.

There’s also going to be a lot more character posters. Four more to be exact. Yup, we always do overkill on the posters but if there’s anything this play requires, it’s overkill. The concept for this poster was based on imagery from Badlands, Heathers and Natural Born Killers. Essentially, iconic movies about young attractive killer couples. It definitely makes an eye grabbing poster. I just hope we’ll be allowed put it up in public!

Night Of The Living Dead runs from July 24th – 28th in The Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny.

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