The Herald News - October 27 2006
http://www.northjersey.com
'Evil Dead.' The Musical?
By ED BEESON
KEVIN R. WEXLER
HERALD NEWS
Here's the scenario: Our hero Ash descended into the cellar of the creepy cabin in the woods.
He was prepared for whatever awaited him. On the bloody stump, where his right hand once was, sat a chainsaw. In the palm of his left was a shotgun. And in his mind lurked a mission: to retrieve the lost pages of the Necronomicon, better known as the Book of the Dead, which he planned to use to send the very demons he awoke back into the world whence they came.
The only thing standing in his way was his short, twerpy sister. She had been possessed by one of those demons, which caused her to speak in bad puns and yearn to devour people's souls.
When the two met in this dark, dank place, the showdown was chock-full of spicy B-movie dialogue.
"See this? This is my boomstick!" said Ash, leveling his shotgun down the demon girl's path.
"I'll swallow your soul!" his sister cackled, suspended in air before him.
"Swallow this!" Ash said.
Blam. The shotgun fired. Dead demon dropped to the floor.
And a burst of applause rose from the silhouetted audience. The makers of "Evil Dead the Musical" were pleased.
"Great, thanks, guys," a British woman's voice issued from the loudspeakers. "We'll be holding on that note."
It was the voice of the stage manager. Time for this dress rehearsal was running short and
there were still kinks to iron out before the theater doors opened and a select audience of 300 university students and comic book fans poured in to watch the first public performance of "Evil Dead the Musical" in New York.
Though it reeks of something drunkenly dreamed up in a college dorm room and then forgotten in a hangover haze, "Evil Dead the Musical" is a real enterprise with serious aspirations.
A veteran producer named William Franzblau, a Newark native who lives in Morristown, imported "Evil Dead the Musical" from Canada, where it had been created as an ode to the cult (albeit non-musical) horror film series by the same name.
"I hope, if we do this right, it will be a destination-type show -- people come to New York and say 'Gee, I gotta see 'Evil Dead,'" said Franzblau, who serves as the musical's executive producer.
"This might sound crazy," he continued, but he hopes to attract not just the "Deadites" -- as devout "Evil Dead" fans are known -- but also the tourists who flock to Broadway to see hits like "Avenue Q," "The Drowsy Chaperone" or "Jersey Boys."
To pull them in requires pulling off a spectacular show. To that end, Franzblau hired a cadre of theater professionals, including three-time Tony Award-winner Hinton Battle, to refine the show. He secured an open-ended run at New World Stages, an off-Broadway venue, and dedicated the month of October to previews, giving the production a long stretch to work out any glitches before critics can point them out to the public.
All this for a musical that sprays theatrical blood into its audience, features martial arts sequences that end in decapitations and closes with a zombie-filled song-and-dance number called "Do the Necronomicon." (Not to mention that, halfway through the show, the hero Ash severs his own hand with a chainsaw because it, too, got possessed by a demon.)
Before the audience arrives, the atmosphere inside the theater was a study in contrasts. The stage, dominated by the set's A-frame cabin, emanated spookiness. The show's Canadian creators, who have nurtured the musical from its infancy, bounded with giddiness. Its New York producers, who have the responsibility of whipping it into profitable shape or face closure, were coolly reserved.
Chris Bond, who directed the musical in Canada (duties he now shares with Hinton Battle), gushed during the dinner break about all the new special effects at his disposal: Puppets, blood, wires, smoke, breakables. "We have new ones that no one has ever seen before," he said, his smile widening.
A stage door opened. Franzblau poked his head in. "Chris," he said, his voice a light bark. "We gotta go." Time for another meeting, to be conducted over pizza.
Franzblau is a tall man with a stud earring and a tinge of seriousness. He somewhat resembles Pete Townshend of The Who. At 53, he has worked for nearly three decades as a stage producer and talent manager -- a stint here producing the off-Broadway hit "Jewtopia," a stint there managing the glam metal band White Lion.
But perhaps he is best equipped to turn shows like "Evil Dead the Musical" into hits. Many of the projects he highlights in his bio -- the touring version of "Beatlemania," two "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" musicals and the Tony-nominated play "Say Goodnight Gracie," about the married life of comedians George Burns and Gracie Allen -- are essentially spin-offs of established franchises.
After the dinner break, the actors rehearsed the choreographed, eight-person fight sequence that marks the climax. In slow, concentrated motions, actors playing demon zombies punched and swiped at Ash, receiving his chainsaw thrusts and shotgun blasts in return.
In the absence of sound effects, they pantomimed the sound of the ensuing blood bursts. "Thub, thub. Psshh."
Blood is a major selling point of "Evil Dead the Musical." The production's credits include two "blood delivery system" consultants, and perhaps for the first time in the history of New York theater, there is a designated "splatter zone" in the audience, into which water-soluble blood is sprayed throughout each performance.
"We're also thinking about smells, like Smell-O-Vision," Franzblau said moments before the audience arrived. He produced a small spray bottle that resembled a black market fragrance and spritzed it above the heads of several associates.
"What does that smell like?" he asked as the mist settled.
A publicist sniffed deeply. "Cinnamon," she said, a pleasant smile stretching across her face.
The scent was meant to remind people of the woods. No matter. It was sprayed around the theater as the audience entered. They took their seats, and Franzblau took a microphone.
"You all are part of what I would call as much an experiment as an experience," he said from the stage. "If this is really the big hit that we believe it is going to be, you all can say, 'I was a part of that.'"
The theater darkened and the musical's plot, which melds the first two "Evil Dead" movies, unfolded: Five vacationing college students break into a remote cabin in the woods and accidentally unleash demonic forces upon the world.
The audience cheered for every winking reference to the "Evil Dead" movies, and guffawed at the show's overall nuttiness. Meanwhile, the stage manager flipped through a large three-ring binder and penciled notes into a yellow legal pad. Her colleagues sat nearby, faces aglow as they typed on laptops.
Their calm was an odd contrast to the theater's new mood, which, between the actors' joyous singing, their liberal bloodletting and the audience's laughter, descended into what felt like a strange fever dream.
"Die, die! Die, die!" Ash sang as he split his possessed girlfriend's severed head with a chainsaw, a fan of blood drenching him, head to toe.
The house lights came up. During intermission, Franzblau and his creative underlings held an impromptu meeting. Franzblau made note of things that needed fixing: flopped jokes, loose-fitting wigs, orchestral miscues. Underlying this seemed a concern that any flub, however minor, might damage the show's reputation. "I don't want to hear criticism from people who haven't seen it," Franzblau told his crew.
The audience shuffled out at the end, many evidently pleased with what they had just witnessed. Some lingered to take pictures with the musical's poster hanging outside the theater.
Once they scattered into the night, it was back to business inside. Vacuum cleaners turned on, publicity photos were taken. And with two words, Franzblau called the various managers, designers and technical crew to attention.
"Tech meeting," he said, and everyone gathered for another near-midnight talk about the work that remains to be done.
Reach Ed Beeson at 973-569-7042 or beeson@northjersey.com.
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Birth of 'The Dead'
For those unfamiliar with "The Evil Dead," the movie is a prime example of a cult classic. Made in 1979 on a shoestring budget by a college dropout, it follows a fairly familiar premise: Five vacationing college students accidentally unleash evil forces on the world after they break into an abandoned cabin in the woods and discover the Necronomicon, an ancient tome written in blood. One by one, they become possessed by demons and maul each other to pieces.
The film was a low-budget bloodbath. But what set "The Evil Dead" apart from countless mind-numbing slasher flicks was its wily inventiveness and absurd, slapstick comedy.
In the 25 years since the movie first hit theaters, it has spawned two sequels ("Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn" in 1987 and "Army of Darkness" in 1992 ), several blatant ripoffs and a legion of fans who can quote, ad nauseam, the witty one-liners quipped by actor Bruce Campbell, who plays Ash in all three films.
The trilogy's director didn't fare badly, either. Sam Raimi has since made two of the 10 most lucrative films of all time: "Spider-Man" and "Spider-Man 2."
