zombie Tag Archive

1315

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.

Continue reading

1211

July 21, 2012 • devious theatre

Night Of The Living Dead – The Prologue

Philip Brennan and Connie Walsh as Babs and Johnny.

In preparation for this coming weeks stage debut of Night Of The Living Dead we’ve just released a prologue for the play based on the opening scene of the movie.

The famous kick off to George A. Romero’s 1968 original, is the big omission for the stage adaptation by Connie Walsh and myself. The scene involves protagonist Barbara and her brother Johnny visiting their father’s grave on the day when the dead begin to walk. And it’s got the famous ‘They’re coming to get you, Barbara!’ line. When we decided we weren’t going to represent it on stage, we figured the best way to do it would be to make a shot for shot short movie based on it and release it as a prologue that would lead into the events of the play. So, here it is!

Myself and Connie wrote it and Devious Theatre produced it in conjunction with Mycrofilms. I did the directing (pretty much stole Romero’s shot list) with Richie Cody lining up all the shots. Connie played her role as Babs in the play with Philip Brennan playing the role of Johnny.

Bulls aren’t the only things they need to watch out for.

The idea is that if you’re going to see the play, this will give you a nice intro into the world of it. If you’re not going to see the play, maybe this can persuade you to go!

Photos by Ross Costigan.

Continue reading

1194

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.

Continue reading

1066

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.

Continue reading

1388

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.

Continue reading