Sweet Music! Dracula to Return to Broadway...with Anton Chigurh?

I haven't been dealing too much in horror industry news anymore, in part because there are others who are so much better at it, but this tasty little tidbit was just too tantalizing to pass up! The New York Post's Broadway reporter Michael Riedel broke the news this morning that producers are in talks to revive the classic 1927 John Balderston/Hamilton Deane stage production of Dracula--and are angling for their lead to be none other than Javier Bardem.

To call this casting inspired is to make a colossal understatement. Bardem--best-known for his chilling turn in the Coen Bros.' No Country for Old Men--is, in the opinion of this blogger, an absolutely and outstandingly perfect casting choice. Now, keep in mind, we're talking about the adapted stage version, not Stoker's original story.

As we all know, the role was originated in '27 by Bela Lugosi, who took it from the Great White Way to the silver screen in 1931--in a movie I very coincidentally reviewed just yesterday. Fifty years later, it was first revived on Broadway with a young Frank Langella in the lead (Langella would also reprise the part on screen shortly thereafter). And now, more than 30 years after that, it is very possibly becoming a reality once again--although it should be noted that the Broadway producers are in contention over the rights with a group of off-Broadway producers also looking to revive the show, with an unknown as the Count and F. Murray Abraham as Van Helsing (hey, can we get Abraham to jump over to the Bardem production? Cause that would rock on an astronomical level).

I've got fingers and toes crossed big-time for this one, and I'll certainly be in the audience for it if it happens. In fact, I'll think I'm going to start saving up the $87,000 for the tickets today!

Bardem perfectly combines sex appeal, a sinister edge, and exotic Continental-ness--a similar combo to what Lugosi brought to the table. Langella, in my opinion, only succeeded in the first category, but was sorely lacking in the latter two. Who knows, if this should actually come to pass, there might be another cinematic version of the classic play in our future! Move over, Eddie Cullen--Daddy's home.

VAULT VLOG: Gill Meets Girl! CFTBL The Musical!

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On a side note, I just wanted to get the word out that BJ-C has indeed followed in my footsteps as a multi-blogger. As of yesterday, the mistress of Day of the Woman has officially kicked off Come on Feel the Illinoiz, a blog dedicated to the local band scene in her native Lake County, Illinois and vicinity. As one who supported so many local bands on the Brooklyn scene back in the day (back me up here, RayRay), I'm pretty psyched about it, and give it the VoH Seal of Approval. Incidentally, I also happen to have a music blog of my own, in case you've never checked it out.

Welcome to the world of managing more than one blog, BJ! Of course, you're not a blogging machine like myself until you have FOUR blogs to your name, but anyways...

Bringing the "Living Dead" to Life

Readers, it can be a very interesting and enlightening experience having one's finger ever upon the proverbial pulse of the horror world. Every now and then, you'll come across a particularly fascinating item. For instance, did you know that right now, in Louisville, Kentucky, an intrepid little production company called Stage One is attempting to launch a stage adaptation of Night of the Living Dead?

It's true. Thanks to playwright Lori Allen Ohm and directors Andrew D. Harris and Steven Rahe, George Romero's watershed classic will literally be brought to life the week of Halloween at Louisville's Iroquois Amphitheater. In fact, right now, Stage One is running a makeshift "Zombie University" for the purpose of preparing hosts of drama students to be undead extras in the production.

"The participants will go through characterization workshops so they know who they were when they were alive, and that will be reflected in their costume and makeup," said Stage One's makeup and costume designer Julianne Johnson to the Louisville Courier-Journal.

First Shakespeare's Land of the Dead, and now this. How long before we get Zombi 2: The Musical?

Shakespeare's Land of the Dead

"London 1599. Shakespeare’s Henry V opens the Globe
Playhouse, but while the actors strut and fret, an excess of bile plagues the populace outside. A true and accurate account of the Elizabethan zombie plague!"

That's the official summary from the press release issued last month by the Walking Shadow Theatre Company, and that about sums up what, by all reports, is an ingenious production debuting this week at the Minnesota Fringe Festival in the heart of Minneapolis. Mixing equal parts Elizabethan drama and Romero-style zombie mayhem, Shakespeare's Land of the Dead sounds like the literate horror fan's dream! Or at least the most brilliant theatre production anyone's come up with since Evil Dead: The Musical.

The gist of the plot: During rehearsals, one of the members of Willy S.'s company is attacked by a ghoul, leading to the Globe Theatre being locked down under quarantine. While London falls prey to the undead outside, the Bard and contemporaries such as Richard Burbage, Sir Francis Bacon, and even Queen Elizabeth herself, fight to survive inside. While I acknowledge this has the potential to be either absolutely phenomenal or totally unwatchable, reactions thus far point to the former.

If you've seen it, please drop a line to the Vault! If you live in the Minneapolis area, catch it before it closes next Sunday, and report back! That is all.

You Will Believe a Fly Can Sing

David Cronenberg's highly improbable yet highly intriguing operatic adaptation of his 1986 masterpiece The Fly is mere days away from debuting on Wednesday at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, amidst a great deal of buzz (sorry!). Such a bizarre concept--I wonder if it will be any good, or if it can be a success. There's certainly enough great talent involved.

Not only is Cronenberg directing, but the music for the opera was written and orchestrated by the film's original composer Howard Shore (acclaimed in recent years for his Lord of the Rings score), and the musical director is none other than Placido Domingo, one of the most important tenors of the 20th century.

Toronto's Globe & Mail has an interesting piece on the opera's impending debut. The article reveals that the story's setting has been changed by Cronenberg back to the 1950s--the era of the original movie version of The Fly--due to its "visual richness." True to Cronenberg's intentions, the opera's librettist David Henry Hwang has retained the horror of the body that distinguished the director's classic.

According to the article, the idea for this bold new treatment came from the operatic nature of Shore's original score, on which Shore, Cronenberg and even the movie's producer Mel Brooks had often remarked.

“I had always thought the movie was like a stage play,” Cronenberg tells the Globe & Mail. “It's three people in a room, a triangle, and the emotions are very intense, very heightened."

The ambitious production will be a fully realized stage piece, complete with bass-baritone Daniel Okelitch as Seth Brundle, singing while in a mutated fly suit and hanging from the rafters in a harness to simulate wall-crawling. It's a far-cry from Puccini, but opera lovers will note that it's not as unorthodox as it may seem, as imagery from the likes of Gounod's Faust or Mozart's Don Giovanni will attest.

The Paris engagement of The Fly will run from Wednesday, July 2 through Sunday, July 13. It will make its American debut at the Los Angeles Opera in September. One wonders--will a traditional opera audience accept the outlandish production? Will it attract those not normally inclined to attend an opera? It'll be pretty fascinating to see how it all plays out.