Opening the weekend before Halloween, the theater department put a spooky, satirical spin on George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead.”
Taking on a comedic adaptation of this classic zombie film meant a full embrace of its trademark silver-screen gore, with props ranging from limbs to rib cages.
“It’s actually really neat, the screaming and the different effects — they use to be gory,” sophomore Madeline Williams said. “I like it, that element you don’t have a lot where it’s creepy and trying to scare you.”
Despite its scary themes, cast members and crew say the audience was still able to get a good laugh out of the show.
“It’s really funny, and it’s a really amazing take on the original movie,” junior Harry Reed said. ”We just add so much more to it, and it’s really cool.”
Williams and Reed played the roles of a news anchor and the protagonist’s brother Johnny, respectively. A zombie ensemble, however, made up a bulk of the cast, encouraging many actors to experiment with developing a character completely void of dialogue.
“There’s not really a lot of depth to going ‘Ughh,’ ” junior Magnus Pollington said. “You really have to be able to show character and zombie-ness in your physical aspect.”
Perhaps the most unconventional aspect of the show, however, was the plot structure. Taking a Clue-esque turn in the second act, the ending went spiraling in alternate directions. For actors, this meant memorizing a different set of dialogue for each ending.
“It’s kind of complicated, there’s a lot of tiny different little variations for each of the different lines inside each of those different little acts,” Pollington said. “That, alongside memorizing everything else, is a big challenge.”
These unusual challenges only pushed the cast to work harder at bringing this story to life and showing the audience something new.
“It’s really something different,” Williams said. “It’s something creepy, it’s not like any normal play that you’ve seen.”
