Thrillpeddlers Welcomes Mortis at Hypnodrome Theatre, 10/21-31

Thrillpeddlers is proud to announce a premiere groundbreaking collaboration between themselves and Vigor Mortis - Brazil's Premiere Grand Guignol Theatre. This play marks the joining of two of the finest Grand Guignol Theatre Companies working today as part of Thrillpeddlers premiere Artist In Residency Program, they are hosting Vigor Mortis to present the Brazilian troupe's new work on stage in America for the first time.
 
A scientist, a nun, an exorcist and a man giving birth to a demonic creature: set the stage for Vigor Mortis' short play THE FORSAKEN LABORATORY, a cartoonish grand-guignol extravaganza. The play originally was part of the Brazilian-based VIGOR MORTIS PEEP SHOWS, a Grand Guignol showcase program staged by the company in April 2010 as a part of a research program for the Brazilian Arts Council. The play is a horror pantomime which serves as a fun exercise to the 'actor-prestidigitator', a concept developed by Vigor Mortis for Grand Guignol acting.

THE FORSAKEN LABORATORY staged at the Hypnodrome, casts Rafaella Marques and Michelle Pucci (Brazilian performers in Vigor Mortis) as well as Flynn DeMarco and Daniel Bakken from the Thrillpeddlers. This is the first time that Vigor Mortis and the Thrillpeddlers,- two of the finest Grand Guignol Theatre Companies working today, have collaborated on a performance. It will be performed for 6 performances only Oct. 21, 22, 28, 29, 30, 31, 2010, after performances of SHOCKTOBERFEST!! 2010: KISS OF BLOOD. Thrillpeddlers' Hypnodrome Theatre - located at 575 10th Street, San Francisco 94103. (Bryant & Division Sts.) Tickets 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 (now thru Dec. 19, 2010)  are $30 gen. admission or $35 premium tix 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.
 
In addition, on Wed. October 27, 2010, Vigor Mortis hosts an evening of Brazilian Horror Films that will include: MORGUE STORY (8:30 pm) - a features film by Viror Mortis which was praised by Dennis Harvey in Varirty as "Brazilian bad-taste comedy is ingenious enough to please as a farcical Grand Guignol for sophisticated horror fans.," and a special late night screening of the cult Brazilian horror movie THE EMBODIMENT OF EVIL - (11:00 pm)
Both films screen on Wed. Oct. 27 at the Vortex Room - 1082 Howard St. (at 7th St.) in SF.
Admission $5.00.
 
Vigor Mortis is a Theatre and Film Company from Curitiba, Brazil. The company was founded in 1997, after the director Paulo Biscaia Filho concluded his MA Thesis on the aesthetics of the Grand Guignol. The first production was 'Peep - through the eyes of a serial killer', followed by 'DCVXVI', based on the life of Brazil's most notorious serial killer. In 2004, the company premiered 'MORGUE STORY', Vigor Mortis' first big hit. The play earned several awards and performed at many prestigious theatre festivals in Brazil. 'GRAPHIC' was another success which followed. The play earned many Best Play awards throughout Brazil. The tradition of mixing Grand Guignol, influenced by graphic novels and cinematic language, continued with the production of 'HITCHCOCK BLONDE' (2008), 'NERVO CRANIANO ZERO' (2009) and 'MANSON SUPERSTAR' (2009). In 2009, Vigor Mortis released its first feature film. 'MORGUE STORY Blood, Blowfish and Comics' (2009) - an adaptation of the company's original stage production. The film was  screened in over 30 Int'l. film festivals and earned eight awards. Vigor Mortis' core team is: Paulo Biscaia Filho (director, writer and video design), Rafaella Marques (actress/producer), Michelle Pucci (actress/producer), Leandro Daniel Colombo (actor/producer), Wagner Correa (actor, light designer and technical director), Marco Novack (actor, sound design, producer and project manager).
 
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".
 
PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI
An original musical by Link Martin (book/lyrics) and Scrumbly Koldewyn (music), PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI is a comic mock-operetta about white slavery, opium dens, and miscegenation set in the colorful world of 1937 Shanghai. Pearls is set at the crossroads of good and evil, an 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 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.  Thrillpeddlers are also the purveyors of www.GrandGuignol.com - the most complete source of Grand Guignol information on the Net.
 
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.
 

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