The Thrillpeddlers Present VICE PALACE: The Last Cockettes Musical

Straight from San Francisco, The Thrillpeddlers present a concert version of their smash hit revival, VICE PALACE: The Last Cockettes Musical on Friday & Saturday, October 21 & 22 as part of the 2011 HOWL! Festival, at Theater 80. Selections from the show can be seen earlier in the week at the New York Library for the Performing Arts on Monday, October 17, as part of The Martin Worman Papers - which takes an in-depth look into the life and career Mr. Worman - actor, playwright, lyricist, director, female impersonator, activist and academic.

Loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death", VICE PALACE was written by Martin Worman & Scrumbly Koldewyn in 1972 as a vehicle for Divine and actress Mink Stole (best known as stars of cult-director John Waters' films), and The Cockettes. VICE PALACE follows Divina, (Leigh Crow), an eccentric and wealthy woman who spares no expense to keep her jet-set party guests entertained, while the villagers just beyond the walls of her lavish estate are ravaged by the plague. Each performance must top the next in this bizarre race to escape the one uninvited party guest - death!

Originally produced as a "Nocturnal Dream Show" and performed at midnight at the old Palace Theatre in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco on Halloween weekend of 1972, VICE PALACE was the fabled and fabulous Cockettes' final stage presentation.

The Cockettes were a gender-bending theatrical troupe who not only originated many outrageous shows, but also exerted a profound influence on the culture of our times, from the phenomenon of midnight movies, to glitter rock stars and their outrageous fashions.

Thrillpeddlers new adaptation stylistically imparts "much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, and much of the bizarre!" while also giving a nod to the early 1960s films of Frederico Fellini, specifically "La Dolce Vita" and "Juliet of the Spirits". Directed by Russell Blackwood and staring drag king superstar Leigh Crow as Divina and composer, co-author and original Cockettes member Srumbly Koldewyn.

Thrillpeddlers
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 tradition. In 2008, Thrillpeddlers embraced another niche theatrical genre with the company's annual Theatre of the Ridiculous Revival, Which have included Charles Busch's THEODORA, SHE-BITCH OF BYZANTIUM, Charles Ludlam's JACK IN THE BEANSTALK, and Link Martin and Scrumbly Koldewyn's PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI (the Revivals' 2009 offering which went on to a twenty-two month run in SF).

The HOWL! Festival
The HOWL! Festival (www.howlfestival.com) is a month-long performance series which will take place throughout the month of October (2011) to benefit the HOWL Emergency Life Project (H.E.L.P). Administered by the Actors Fund, H.E.L.P is an emergency services and health fund available to East Village and downtown artists in need of assistance. HOWL! Arts Project is sponsored by Actors Fund (administrators of H.E.L.P) and presents poetry, theater, film, dance, music and performance art programs.

HOWL! Arts channels the spirit and artistic invention of the namesake poem and poet Allen Ginsberg to deliver firsthand examples of the creative, cultural, and historical forces that have made the highly original downtown arts of the EV/LES community world-renowned