“The first thing that went across my head was, ‘Shakespeare and zombies, I’m doing it,’” said Daniel Student, actor and Plays and Players Theater executive committee member.
Well, yeah. We’re pretty much sold on this end too.
The out actor will play William Shakespeare in the East Coast premiere of “William Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead,” the culmination of Plays and Players’ “Zombiedelphia,” a month-long celebration of all things that rise from the grave seeking to consume human flesh.
Philadelphia is hosting the second-ever run of the play, written by John Heimbuch, that set records when it debuted in Minneapolis.
“It sold out,” said director Bill Egan, Plays and Players’ openly gay president. “It was the highest-grossing Minneapolis Fringe piece that they’ve ever had.”
As luck would have it, Student, who is friends with Heimbuch, was shown the script for “Land of the Dead” around the time Plays and Players was looking for something ghoulishly appropriate for its Zombiedelphia activities.
“We were actually thinking about doing a zombie-themed piece already called ‘Evil Dead: The Musical,’” he said. “I did read the play and discovered that it was quite original, so I felt comfortable passing it on to a couple other people and everyone just loved it at the first read.”
We know. We’re devastated that “Evil Dead: The Musical” got passed over too. But Student said the decision to go with the bard/zombie mash-up was both artistic and practical.
“There were some rights’ issues with ‘Evil Dead; The Musical,’” he said. “What’s nice about this is it’s a new play and we don’t have to pay for that. At the same time, it clearly has a buzz to it. It’s just such a great idea to take this very-well-researched historical costume drama and mix it in with this horror-comedic-schlock-zombie theme.”
Egan agreed that “William Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead” is muh deeper than it appears on the surface.
“Originally, when we first heard about the project, our main assumption was that this was a fun fluff piece that was kind of camp,” he said. “But what’s interesting and more appealing about the piece is that it is actually a very detail-oriented, well-thought-out Shakespearean farce. That’s how it starts. There’s a lot of fun and camp in it, but it has a really strong, solid base, [asking]: Did Shakespeare write everything he wrote? How did he get audiences? Then you throw in the zombie in the play on top of that.”
If the appeal to your intellect isn’t enough to get you camping out for tickets, check this out.
“Right now, we’re at about two gallons of blood per performance,” Egan said.
Oh yes, there is blood. Egan said the Plays and Players’ production will be more elaborate with gore and special effects than what the enraptured audiences in Minneapolis got to see.
“Our production, compared to the Minneapolis production, has two dedicated fight coordinators,” Egan said. “So we have a lot more physical combat and blood spurting that they couldn’t do in their original production. It was hinted at in the script but they didn’t have the ability or time to do that. That’s one of the things we wanted to go for in this production. There are all kinds of swordfights and battles happening. And it’s all men and women. It’s full combat of all races because when people are zombies, it doesn’t matter if they are a man or a woman.”
Student said the fighting sequences make this production one of the bigger challenges he’s had to face as an actor.
“I came in with very little stage-combat experience and we’re having seven or eight full rehearsals of stage combat,” he said. “That’s something that I never had an opportunity to be a part of. A lot of actors who are playing just the zombie roles are people who are pretty well trained in stage combat. The people that just run on stage and fight are doing some pretty impressive stuff while the rest of us get to pretend and look good.”
Egan said many of the play’s actors are excited to take on such physically demanding roles.
“I have 26 people in my cast,” he said. “Half of those people have speaking lines. These are all trained actors, but the appeal to them is being involved in the project and to learn the fighting and the stuff that goes on in a production like this that you wouldn’t get in a typical show — especially in this era where we’re prone to do two- to four-character plays with limited budgets and small sets. So it’s been a really great opportunity for them to do a show like this to expand their skill set.”
Oh, and if the fighting and blood spurting isn’t enough, just know there’s a dance number as well.
“In traditional Shakespeare shows, there was always a final dance after the show ended, so we’re doing this as a traditional combination Shakespeare-and-zombie piece, sort of a la Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller,’” Student said. “The play ends with me standing on stage, carnage everywhere and zombies creeping in. And then the zombies just start dancing — just one last little bit of over-the-top kitsch to throw in at the end.”
If you think it all sounds just a bit over the top, it is. So why haven’t you stopped reading to reserve tickets?
And if you don’t like the idea, stay home and read “Macbeth.” Then you might realize that ghosts and witches are no strangers to Shakespeare’s plays. Could zombies be that much of a stretch? Probably, but Egan said the zombies in this piece of theater are more the catalysts of inside jokes among people who know Shakespeare’s work than a ramping-up of the supernatural elements in his plays.
“This happens toward the beginning third of his writing career, so there are a lot of references to plays he already wrote and there’s a lot of things that John, the playwright, cleverly weaved in that become the premise of future plays to come,” Egan explained. “At some point in the play, at least five of six people come to Shakespeare saying, ‘You know, I have this idea for a play.’ You know what play it is but they never say the right title. It’s always goofy other titles. It keeps the audience in on the joke.”
Egan said he expects some Shakespeare enthusiasts won’t appreciate the show’s zombie-spiked humor.
“It’s a tongue-in-cheek thing,” he said. “There are still people who are Shakespeare purists that think it’s ludicrous to think he didn’t write all his plays. And then there are other people who think you’re crazy if you think he wrote all of them. The spectrum of appeal of a show like this is from die-hard Shakespeare fans to the opposite end of die-hard zombie fans and those people who fall in between.”
Set shortly after the opening performance of “Henry V” at the newly built Globe Theater in 1599, “Land of the Dead” finds Lord Chamberlain’s men and their renowned playwright William Shakespeare forced to fight for their lives in a quick-and-vicious zombie outbreak, seemingly influencing the future plays of Shakespeare … if he survives. Historic characters such as Richard Burbage (a great dramatic actor of the time), Will Kemp (the great clown/comedic actor), Francis Bacon (philosopher and lawyer) and Queen Elizabeth herself all make an appearance as they seek safety in the Globe from the zombies just outside its walls.
Student said it’s OK if you don’t see Shakespeare as a zombie-killing machine because he doesn’t start out that way.
“He’s kind of a dopey one,” he said of the character’s supposed action-hero status. “He really spends most of the play obsessed with the history of his legacy and his writing than with the actual fact that zombies are attacking. The action sort of happens around him and he is just concerned with what this will mean to his writing and legacy. He definitely gets his moment at the end at being the masculine action hero. There’s a lot in his plays about combat and war. This [play] would fit well into the world of his writing.”
If the enthusiasm of the actors and talent involved is any indication, “Land of the Dead” could see continuing success here in Philadelphia. Even if the theater elite can’t get behind the brain eating, there are more than enough fans of zombie culture, both in the audience and behind the scenes, to make the show a hit.
“I’m a big fan of horror movies and Shakespearean farce, so this is the best of both worlds,” Egan said. “I love a lot of the zombie movies but I would not say that I was originally a zombie fan. The movies are definitely a draw: the concept that it could happen or that anything is possible, especially as we become more afraid with all the scientific stuff we have going on. The potential of some of these movies gets kind of scary when you start to think about what could actually happen and then how the government would respond to something like that. Every generation reinvents it when you’re talking about the atomic bomb or all the way back to the plague. Whatever decade you look at, there is always a concept of, wow, this could happen.”
Egan added that he hopes a production like this will encourage zombie fanatics and horror-movie fans to enjoy theater more often.
“Maybe it will turn them on to theater when they normally wouldn’t think, ‘Hey, let’s go see a show,’ on a Friday or Saturday night,” he said. “That’s part of the draw and why we added the two midnight performances. We’re trying to do our take on the ‘Rocky Horror’ genre and put a little more audience integration to go after the non-standard theatergoer. It shows them that it’s not always this stuffy-shirt kind of thing and there’s a lot of different types of theaters: You don’t have to be a Shakespeare expert to come see this and have a good time. From what we’re seeing, there’s definitely a huge market for it. I think Philly Fringe is the only thing during the year that speaks to that audience. This was one of our first shows where people started buying tickets the first day we started selling.”
You heard the man: Shamble on down to the box office and get yours now!
“William Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead” will crack zombie skulls open like coconuts through March 28 at Plays and Players Theater, 1714 Delancey Place. For more information, visit www.playsandplayers.org or call (215) 735-0630.
Larry Nichols can be reached at [email protected]..