Thrillpeddlers is proud to announce their signature Halloween show SHOCKTOBERFEST!! 2010: KISS OF BLOOD (3 one-act plays), the 11th annual presentation of Grand Guignol terror plays and titillating farces, running Thursdays and Fridays at 8:00 pm from Sept. 30 through Nov. 19, 2010, with a speciAl Halloween performance on Sunday, Oct. 31 at 8:00 pm. Opening Night (press night) - Thurs., Oct. 7. Thrillpeddlers' Hypnodrome Theatre is located at 575 10th Street, San Francisco 94103. (Bryant & Division Sts.) Tickets for SHOCKTOBERFEST!! 2010 are $25 general admission or $35 premium admission for "Shock Boxes" and "Turkish Lounges" (premium tickets sold in pairs only), and are available at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/125107 or by calling 800/ 838- 3006.
Tickets for PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI are $30 general admission or $35 premium admission for"Shock Boxes" and "Turkish Lounges" (premium tickets sold in pairs only), and are available at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/67716 or by calling 800/ 838- 3006.
SHOCKTOBERFEST!! 2010: KISS OF BLOOD will be presented in repertory with Thrillpeddlers' current production PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI, The Cockettes Musical, which plays on Saturdays at 8:00 pm in October, Saturdays at 8:00 pm and Sundays at 7:00 pm in November, and Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm and Sundays at 7:00 pm in December, through Dec. 19, 2010.
SHOCKTOBERFEST!! 2010: KISS OF BLOOD
The program will feature 3 One-Act plays, including the title piece KISS OF BLOOD by Jean Aragny and Francis Neilson, a 1929 shocker from the repertoire of Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol the original French horror theatre, in a new English adaptation by Daniel Zilber (co founder of Thrillpeddlers), and LIPS OF THE DAMNED and THE EMPRESS OF COLMA, two original plays in the Grand Guignol tradition commissioned by Thrillpeddlers from New York playwright Rob Keefe.
The bill culminates with Thrillpeddlers' famed black-out spook show finale when ghostly apparitions materialize before the audience's startled eyes. The Hypnodrome's "Shock Box" seats provide pairs of patrons with privacy and an added jolt of "lights-out thrills".
KISS OF BLOOD (Le Baiser de sang) caused a sensation when it debuted at infamous Parisian horror theatre, Le Theatre du Grand Guignol in 1929 due to the gruesomeness of its opening scene, set as it is in an operating theatre during the aftermath of a botched brain surgery. At a theatre that had acquired an international reputation for onstage violence, shocking its audience must have been no mean feat - but by confronting the audience with a gruesome tableau the moment the curtain rises, they achieved their goal. The science of brain surgery was still in its infancy, and inexact, to say the least. As the play unfolds, the theme of madness as a surgically operable malady is explored with even more startling developments.
LIPS OF THE DAMNED, suggested by "La Veuve" (a French slang term for The Guillotine, literally "The Widow"), is set in a French museum of torture devices and other antique curiosities, forced to close its doors due to an uncontrollable infestation of starved rats. An illicit amorous tryst is interrupted, or perhaps enhanced, by the intrusion of unwelcome parties.
THE EMPRESS OF COLMA takes place in the basement clubhouse of potential pageant candidates all vying desperately for the title of "Empress of Colma". Their dental assistant girlfriend, tolerated only for her easy access to pharmaceutical drugs, scores the wrong drugs one fateful day, with hilarious, ...albeit disastrous, results.
At intermission, Thrillpeddlers invite audience members to partake in a macabre demonstration of their full-size replica of an 18th century Guillotine. Steady nerves and cameras are a must.
PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI
An original musical by Link Martin (book/lyrics) and Richard "Scrumbly" Koldewyn (music), PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI is the centerpiece of Thrillpeddlers' 3rd annual Theatre of the Ridiculous Revival, and marks the 40th anniversary of the formation of The Cockettes, a gender-bending theatrical troupe who not only originated this show, but also exerted a profound influence on the culture of our times, from the phenomenon of midnight movies to glitter rock stars (such as David Bowie and the New York Dolls) and their outrageous fashions. Pearls is a psychedelic musical inspired by sin soaked Old Shanghai and Busby Berkeley movie musicals from Hollywood's Golden Age.
PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI is a comic mock-operetta about white slavery, opium dens, and miscegenation set in the colorful world of 1937 Shanghai. Link Martin parts the bamboo curtain, his politics swept aside by his love of the mystery and intrigue of the Orient. Placing his story at the crossroads of good and evil, his exotic "old sin town" is filled with singing sailors, humorous whores, foolish immortals, handmaidens and henchmen, all taking their places in streets teeming with a mix of foreign aristocrats, opium addicts, and gangland slave-trade czars.
Stage Director for PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI is Thrillpeddlers' Russell Blackwood, and original Cockette and composer Richard "Scrumbly" Koldewyn serves as Musical Director and accompanist. With a cast of over 20, costumes a-plenty, and a score of 24 original songs, this production is the most eye-popping and toe-tapping in the Hypnodrome's history, with the scent of intoxicating perfume, poisonous flowers, opium, and sex oozing from every scene.
Thrillpeddlers - "Best Underground Theater Company" - 7 X 7 Magazine (June '10)Thrillpeddlers (www.thrillpeddlers.com) have been performing their unique brand of horror and fetish theatre in San Francisco since 1991. Under the direction of Russell Blackwood, Thrillpeddlers are continuously engaged in translating, adapting and producing classic plays from the infamous repertoire of Le Théâtre du Grand Guignol and producing other works inspired by the Grand Guignol. The company's SOMA performance venue, The Hypnodrome, is tailor-made for the specific needs of horror theatre, "lights-out" spook show spectacle, multi-act bills, and arts education programs for young people. Inaugurating The Hypnodrome with WELCOME TO THE HYPNODROME in 2004, Thrillpeddlers have gone on to produce wildly popular Grand Guignol bills including BLOOD BUCKET BALLYHOO, HYPNODROME HEAD TRIPS, FLAMING SIN, AUDACIOUS ARTEFACTS and PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI in both San Francisco and NYC's HOWL Festival. Shocktoberfest!!. In 2010 their production of HOT GREEKS (the other Cockettes Book Show) sold-out its entire 2 month run. Thrillpeddlers' annual pageant of terror and titillation, is now in its 11th year and has become a S.F. Halloween favorite. The company's production history includes the American premiere of Clive Barker's FRANKENSTEIN IN LOVE, MONDO ANDRONICUS (selected Best of the 1997 S.F. Fringe Festival), a double-bill of THE MEDIUM and A CRIME IN THE MADHOUSE (in Pretoria, South Africa). Thrillpeddlers has won the Guardian's "Best of the Bay" and Goldie Awards, and back-to-back "Best of San Francisco" Awards from the SF Weekly. Thrillpeddlers are also the purveyors of www.GrandGuignol.com - the most complete source of Grand Guignol information on the Net.
Pairs of patrons will surely enjoy Hypnodrome's Shock Box seats for two, which garnered S.F. Weekly's "Best of San Francisco 2008" for "Best Bonus Theater Experience." These themed seats include sumptuous Turkish Lounges, as well as private boxes including "Heaven and Hell, "The Pharaoh's Tomb," and "The Padded Cell," which offer the same opportunity for illicit trysting that was once a feature of the Parisian Théâtre du Grand-Guignol - with added special effects as a nod to the 1950s horror movie gimmicks of William Castle.
For 65 years an old Jansenist monastery down a back alley in Montmartre was home to one of Paris' great stage attractions, Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol. Born in 1897 out of the Naturalist theatre movement, the theatre company soon developed its own distinct repertoire of short horror plays, dramas, comedies and sex farces. As many as 6 of these one-acts played on a single bill, a "laughter and tears" line-up that alternated effortlessly between gasps and guffaws. This "hot and cold shower" format seemed to intensify an audience's delight and unease as they collectively realized that anything could happen on the Grand Guignol stage - no topic was taboo, and no symbol was sacred. Particularly during the decades that book-ended the world wars, live entertainment flourished in Montmartre. The artists there played a vital role in the development of new performance genres for the 20th century. What is thought of today as "modern drama" and popular entertainment owes much to Montmartre's melodramas, cabarets, music halls, repertory theatres, and on-stage experiments that ranged from the avant-garde to the overtly sexual.
