A few days ago, Aaron Kopec mentioned that he had a mop full of glitter. It’s the type of thing that goes with the territory when you’re getting ready to stage a live production of The Rocky Horror Show. With the popularity of the film being as overwhelming as it’s been, it’s easy to forget that the show had humble beginnings. It originally opened in a house that could only hold 63 people. “I can't imagine staging this show in such a tiny venue,” Kopec said in a recent post. “That one extra seat makes a huge difference.”
The intimate 64-capacity Alchemist Theatre will stage its production of the cult classic next month. When it does so, it will be closing-out a long history of Halloween shows. After this, it’s going to be kind of weird not going to the Alchemist for another horror show in October 2016, but I’m sure the full reality of the situation isn’t really going to hit me until this time next year. Here’s a look back:
2008--Jackie Benka’s RIPPER!
Okay, so the title makes it kind of look like a musical, but it wasn’t. The real-life identity of the “Ripper” who tore through prostitutes in the London’s Whitechapel district remains a mystery, There were a lot of theories. Benka’s script took the theory that there was a woman at the center of all the carnage. I vividly remember the entrance to the show . . . the intimacy of the venue was amplified as audience members were escorted into the theatre around the side of the theatre by women who were playing the prostitutes in question.
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2009--Dracula the Undead
The script to this one was based on a script written by Dale Gutzman of Off the Wall Theatre. It was an interesting variation that featured Kirk Thomsen as a Dracula that felt much more like Count Orlok from Nosferatu than the traditional image of dark royalty.
2010--Murder Castle: The Chronocile of H.H. Holmes
Herman “H.H. Holmes” Mudgett was an early American serial killer who operated out of Chicago during The World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. He was the subject of the popular novel Devil in the White City. Kopec’s script was...extensive for this one. Nate Press’ performance as the killer was memorably dark. When the recent announcement that Leonardo DiCaprio would star in Martin Scorsese’s film about Holmes, the first words that rolled into my head were, “No. That’s Nate Press.”
2011--Faust: An Evening at the Mephisto Theatre
Each year’s show got a little bit more ambitious than the one before it. Murder Castle had made use of the basement area beneath the theatre. Mephisto Theatre took the full use of the space to an extreme as multiple scripts were written for multiple characters who navigated their way through the space. Individual audience members could choose which characters they wanted to follow and which places they wanted to hang-out in. It was set in a theater in the ’20s . It was kind of a large ensemble, but Grace DeWolff’s performance as a man engaging with evil in an epic battle.
2012--The Alchemist Eye
Looking back, this series has had some great local actors in key roles. The progression of central ensemble actors goes from Kirk Thomsen to Nate Press to Grace DeWolff to...Jordan Gwiazdowski as a man who, as I recall, collects strange artifacts. Kind of reminded me of Friday the 13th: The Series only with a single charismatic lead who was written to be much more interesting than the characters of that series. The overall logistics of this drama may have been simpler than they were in previous years, but Kopec (who wrote and directed the show) did an exquisite job of locking-in the reality of this one.
2013--Closing Night
Written and directed by Aaron Kopec, this one blurs together in my head a little unevenly with Faust, but it was quite distinct as a murder mystery with the same multiple-characters-in-multiple locations thing that was going on in that show. Audiences explored remarkably detailed environments and interacted with props and things as we delved into the fictional history of a theater that felt a bit like an Alchemist Theatre from an darker alternate dimension.
2014--Suicide Sleep
And then sometimes it’s the simplest stuff that makes the strongest impact. This one had Joshua Devitt as a man in search of sleep. He’s exhausted. He’s trying to deal with life in a rotting, little apartment. A parade of characters slid through the shadows including notably powerful performances by Sammich Dittloff and Liz Whitford. Here it was just the strange existential uncertainty of an uneasy perspective that made the show so remarkable.
2015--Rocky Horror
...this, of course, brings us to 2015. Alchemist Halloween Show #8. Kopec has had years of experience working with this stage. I'm sure he's cleaned-up a lot more than just glitter in this place. It's a very concentrated piece of real estate he's working with and he's been working with it for a very long time. He knows how to bring it together for an intimate space. It should be interesting to see how this particular musical is going to end a longstanding October tradition.
Be a part of the shadowy history of a tiny, little space across from a library in Bay View as Alchemist Theatre presents a production of Rocky Horror runs Oct. 1 - 31. There are still a couple of days left to go in the advance discount period. Order tickets before the Sep. 16 and tickets are $10 off. For more information, visit Alchemist Theatre online.
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