On Stage: Performing Arts at Our Oneonta Campuses
by Rachel Frick Cardelle

‘Evil Dead: The Musical’ To Be Performed Next Week at SUNY O

By RACHEL FRICK CARDELLE
ONEONTA

The last theater show for the spring semester at SUNY O is a little hard to categorize. Is it a musical? Is it a horror show? Is it a comedy? Well, yes, yes, AND yes, it is.

During the first rehearsal I attended of “Evil Dead: The Musical”—book and lyrics by George Reinblatt with music by Christopher Bond, Frank Cipolla, Melissa Morris, and George Reinblatt—I got to enjoy a musical comedy horror show unlike any other theater I have experienced!

I wasn’t the only audience member at that rehearsal who enjoyed myself. Hal Luftig, a SUNY Oneonta alumnus and a Broadway show producer, sat just a row behind me and could not stop laughing. (That’s saying a lot, given Hal has won five Tony awards and two Olivier awards, for shows like “Kinky Boots,” “Evita,” and “West Side Story” to name a few, and is currently producing “The Life of Pi” on Broadway.)

“Evil Dead: The Musical” is based on the Evil Dead series, with a group of five college-aged kids heading to a cabin for a week away. Early on, one of them becomes possessed by an evil demon and the vacation takes a very weird turn from there. While one-by-one the vacationers become demonic and the blood and carnage flow, the cast keeps up a chirpy, fun atmosphere with songs like, “All the Men in My Life Keep Getting Killed by Candarian Demons.”

That first rehearsal I watched started with a series of musical exercises before moving into a full rundown of the show. When I returned a little over a week later, I spent time talking to the director, the cast and some of the crew about the production as they enjoyed a Sunday dinner together.

I began by asking which of the musical warm-ups they most enjoy. I had been intrigued by the tongue-twisting group exercises that would take me years to master. For them it was just a warm-up. The simplest favorite was a quick little exercise going up and down the scales with “zee, zay, zaw, zo, zoo,” because it is “just fun to sing,” I was told. The most complicated and challenging exercise (in my opinion) was one in which the group is given two four-syllable words—e.g., incandescent and luminescent—and they go up the scale using one word for each note, back down the scale with the other word, and then up and down the scale switching back and forth between the two words.

Another group exercise intended to build up the power of the lungs is a long, very silly, tongue-twisting chant bellowed with an Italian accent. One of the actors said this is fun because their director, Kiara Pipino, is Italian and it seems as though they are doing it just for her. Yet another favorite is a ditty about a young woman, “Sarah, Sarah,” and a car she drives. The cast member who liked this one said it is because a good friend of his is named Sarah and, since she finds it annoying when he sings it to her, it has become especially fun for him.

I surveyed the group to see who amongst the cast they thought was most like the character they play. While all agreed Briana is most like her character, Annie—who has an assertive, smart personality—the initial responses focused more on who is NOT like the character they play. Marissa is nothing like Linda, as she isn’t the lovey-dovey, goody two shoes sort, she said. Jay clearly isn’t like their character, Ed, as Ed lets Annie do all the talking for him while Jay is sassy and talkative, the play director told me. Both Marissa and Jay, I was told by everyone, are far more like their characters when they become possessed by demons. (A fact I intend to remember when I am walking across the campus in the future…)

I asked the cast what they guessed the audience members would be thinking about on the trip home from this musical horror comedy show. Their first thoughts were of fellow students, who would need to consider how they were going to write up their “theater appreciation” papers based on what they had just seen. Mostly, though, they believed audience members would be laughing hard while scratching their heads, thinking, “What the HECK was that?!?” Even the college president, the cast and crew assured me, will turn off his professional side long enough to simply enjoy the show.

Since I am married to the college president, I hope they are right about the laughing and enjoyment. But as to audience members wondering what the heck that was that they just saw, I’m not so sure. I mean, who amongst us hasn’t been on a camping trip with friends and family that turned into a chaotic, demon-riddled, zany mess? It seems to me I have been on more than one trip that turned out like that, demons included… But please, don’t tell my family I said that.

You can watch “Evil Dead: The Musical”in the Fine Arts Center’s Goodrich Theater on SUNY O’s campus April 26-28 at 7:30 p.m. or April 29 at 2 p.m. for $8.00 general admission or $3.00 with a student ID.

Up next: “MOVEment: An Evening of Dance,” performed and choreographed by Hartwick College students and regional artists at Hartwick, May 5 and 6 at 7 p.m.

Rachel Frick Cardelle covers performing arts at SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College.