“I guess he just wasn’t fresh enough.”
Re-Animator™ the award winning musical has been re-animated, with new songs and new performers just in time for Halloween. Opening on October 17, 2014 at the Steve Allen Theatre, RE-ANIMATOR™ the Musical tells the story of Herbert West, a brilliant young medical student who has created a glowing green serum that can bring the dead back to life.
What should be a medical breakthrough results in hideous monstrosities and ghastly consequences.
And operatic Jesse Merlin, is back as Dr. Carl Hill who loses his head for Meg, the dean’s beautiful daughter, only to actually lose it at the hands of Herbert West. But thanks to the glowing re-agent, Dr. Hill is still able to take his curtain call with his head tucked underneath his arm.
Also returning from the original cast are (in alphabetical order) Cynthia Carle, Brian Gillespie, Marlon Grace, and Liesel Hanson playing an assortment of doctors, nurses and rampaging zombies.
New to the cast and Los Angeles are Darren Ritchie (veteran of five Broadway shows, including “Dracula” and “Little Shop of Horrors”) as Dan Cain, the handsome young medical student (and West’s hapless roommate) in love with the dean’s beautiful daughter, now played by vivacious newcomer Jessica Howell (recently on Showtime’s “Masters of Sex”). And Ken Hudson Campbell, familiar to many for saving the world with Bruce Willis in “Armageddon,” plays the doomed Dean of the medical school whom West transforms into a mindless zombie.
Stuart Gordon, the director and co-writer of H.P. Lovecraft’s Re-Animator, the cult film on which the musical is based, has joined his fearless producing partner Dean Schramm to prove that anything that can be done in a movie can be a hundred times more astonishing live on stage. Gordon spent fifteen years as the founder and artistic director of the Organic Theater of Chicago, where he co-created the original production of Bleacher Bums and produced and directed the world premiere of David Mamet’s, Sexual Perversity in Chicago. Gordon recently co-created and directed the long-running and critically acclaimed Nevermore with Re-Animator film star Jeffrey Combs as Edgar Allan Poe that is now touring the country.
Mark Nutter is composer and lyricist and his cheerfully disturbing songs have been compared to Tom Lehrer. His previous stage credits include the international hit The Bicycle Men; Christmas Smackdown (created with the equally demented Cynthia Carle): and Wild Men. He’s also known for his work on 3rd Rock From the Sun and Saturday Night Live. His CD Twisted Songs for Twisted Sophisticates has been banned from the airwaves.
Special effects are being done by the same guys who did them for the Re-Animator movie: Tony Doublin, John Naulin and John Beuchler. They all won LA Critics’ and LA Weekly Awards for their mind-boggling illusions. And the blood will flow so freely that the first row will be once again designated as a “splash zone,” so bring your raincoats.
Laura Fine Hawkes, who designed the almost as bloody Lieutenant of Inishmore at the Taper, will provide the creepy sets, Joe Kucharski the moldering costumes and Jeff Ravitz the cadaverous lighting. Stage manager: Michael Lemek will be the master of the mayhem.
Re-Animator™ the Musical was developed and premiered at the Steve Allen Theater 4773 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90027, under the artistic direction of Amit Itelman who also founded Trepany House.
Book by Dennis Paoli, Stuart Gordon and William J. Norris.
Music and lyrics by Mark Nutter.
Adapted from the story by H.P. Lovecraft.
Based on the film “H.P. Lovecraft’s Re-Animator” produced by Brian Yuzna. Musical director: Peter Adams. Choreography by Cynthia Carle.
Directed by Stuart Gordon.
Produced by Dean Schramm and Stuart Gordon. P
resented by The Schramm Group LLC and Red Hen Productions in association with Trepany House.
