Wonderful Life tickets are now on sale, but I get it… it’s too early to think about Christmas.
Well, to inspire you with a different kind of holiday spirits – here are my five favourite creepy, bizarre, or frightening musicals to add to your Hallowe’en playlist.
5. LET’S JUST START WITH THE OBVIOUS: Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Many consider this show to be Sondheim’s biggest achievement and arguably it is (I would argue that it’s Passion) – never the less, this musical would certainly make it onto my all-time favourites list. I was around 19 years old the first time I heard that whistle sound on the Original Cast Recording – and it may have changed the trajectory of my life. Sweeney tells the gruesome tale of a vengeful barber who slits the throats of his customers before sending them down the chute to be ground-up for meat pies in Mrs. Lovett’s Pie Shop.
If you don’t want to give away too much candy this Hallowe’en I would suggest playing the opening number on loop and amplifying it out your front door.
Fun fact: Sweeney Todd is one of the few Sondheim musicals in which the original idea came from Sondheim himself. That… and Passion.
You can watch the entire Lincoln Centre In-Concert version (with an electrifying opening) here.
4. THOUGH IT’S NEVER BEEN ON STAGE (though many are longing to see it live) we all know that The Nightmare Before Christmas may be the best Hallowe’en musical ever. Conceived by the ever-imaginative Tim Burton, the gorgeously designed stop-motion animation would be a choreographers dream (or nightmare) for a live show – and the score by Danny Elfman creates the perfect tone throughout.
What would a live stage show look and feel like you ask? Well, fortunately there is a super fan out there who gave us a taste.
3. ANOTHER REASON I GOT TURNED ON TO MUSICAL THEATRE is the epic off-Broadway, bit of musical-theatre-B-movie-horror perfection Little Shop of Horrors. I played Seymour Krelborn in my high school production back in … another era. I also had the pleasure of directing a production for Persephone Theatre a few years back. Both productions seemed to be surrounded by impish-evil spirits and I hope to tackle it again one day. For now, here are Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene in the film doing a delightful Suddenly Seymour:
2. WELL, WE PROBABLY PRODUCED Herringbone ABOUT ONE MONTH TOO EARLY. I mean a tale about a vengeful spirit possessing an innocent boys body? It’s a perfect dark, creepy tale to enjoy as we consider warding off the evil spirits that might haunt us. We hope to get Herringbone out of his box again down the road. But if you missed it there is a cast recording made by actor, B.D. Wong who toured the show a number of years ago. Here he is talking about why it’s a one (person) musical.
1. IF YOU HAVEN’T GUESSED YOU PROBABLY WEREN’T A PSP FAN in 2010. That’s when we produced Bat Boy: the Musical. This epic little tale, inspired by the stories in the Weekly World News, tells the story of Edgar – a half-bat/half-child found in a cave in West Virginia. This musical isn’t just a great bit of horror-kitsch, it’s a great morality-tale too.
In our production we revealed the origins of Bat Boy through a series of B-Horror, black and white reels… here is a hysterical little bit where (Spoiler Alert) Bat Boy’s mother Meredith is about to be… umm… ravaged by bats. It features the wonderful Bree Grieg, and was shot and edited by the brilliant Michael Side… and it still makes me laugh.
FUN FACT: this was shot right by our hold home on Patrick Street!
And if you’re really craving spirits from beyond our mortal coil, don’t forget that Wonderful Life does feature an Angel who curses a man’s life by making it so he was never born! And if you book before Hallowe’en is all over you’ll get our early-bird rates on tickets!
-PETER JORGENSEN
Co-Artistic Producer
Patrick Street Productions
