Friday, July 20, 2012

Volunteers Needed for Fundraising Campaign

After the success of our first-ever Fresh Blood event, La Petite Morgue is gearing up for our inaugural season. We have ideas, but it will take money to bring those ideas to life. We have a strategy for fundraising, but we need your help!

We need volunteers to:
  • Design merchandise for our SpreadShirt store.
  • Solicit donations that can be used as donor incentives and gifts from horror-themed businesses and service providers (i.e. "Donate $25 to La Petite Morgue and receive a Zombie Mafia CD").
  • Help us make short horror videos explaining why horror fans should donate money.
  • Build our online presence with a website slightly more sophisticated than this blog.
  • Blog about horror - most importantly, live horror - and help us build our blog's readership.
  • Preview and review upcoming events in local and online media.
  • Start a podcast for radio horror plays, interviews, reviews, and speculation.
If any of this appeals to you, please write to: lapetitemorgue@gmail.com - send a short note telling us about your relevant skills and what you would be willing to do to assist our fundraising campaign. Most of these projects can be done from the comfort of your own home or office, and they don't take a big time commitment. If you are a student, we are willing to fill out the necessary paperwork so you can earn school credit. We are also willing to write you a glowing letter of recommendation if that would be useful. If it wouldn't be useful, we will buy you a pizza and some beer.

Script Submission Guidelines

Are you a playwright? La Petite Morgue is willing to consider your script! Here are the guidelines you need:
  • Your script must be horror. No comedies, no spoofs. A horror play can have drama, but having horrible things happen doesn't make your drama into a horror play. Hamlet has a ghost in it, but that doesn't mean Hamlet is a horror show.
  • We are interested in plays written for the stage. We don't make films. Yet.
  • We will consider musicals, if they are as dark or darker than Sweeney Todd
  • We will consider one-man or one-woman shows, if they are sufficiently fascinating.
  • Please send us no more than 30 pages the first time you submit. You can send us three different ten minute plays, or the first 30 pages of your full length play, or any combination you like, but please don't send us more than 30 pages worth of work. If we like those thirty pages, we'll invite you to send more.
  • Our ideal submission is a unique, suspenseful horror show that A.) is scary and B.) features compelling characters. We especially like strong female characters, surprising endings, and plays with immersive or interactive elements.
  • Send your scripts to: lapetitemorgue@gmail.com and make sure to include your name and an e-mail address where you can be reached in the document. Microsoft Word and PDF are the best formats for submissions. 
  • Unfortunately, we do not have time to respond to every submission, and we will only contact you if we are interested in producing something or if we want to see more of your work. 
  • The best way to get a sense of what we like is to attend one of our events and experience the live horror for yourself! Check back soon to find out when the Fresh Blood reading series will resume!

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Fresh Blood Post-Mortem

I want to start out by congratulating and thanking everyone who helped to make FRESH BLOOD such a success! Every seat in the house was taken - and we crammed people into the aisles and entryways. And I think everyone who came enjoyed some scary fun!

We started out the evening with Circles by Steven Korbar. This short play, directed by Andreas Hager, starts out with Cindy Ann (played by Amanda White) and Randel (played by Stephan Goldbach) sitting in a car together on a long drive through the countryside and woods. The audience is nervous for poor Cindy Ann, who is probably about to be the victim of a gruesome fate at the hands of creepy loner Randel - but they were in for a surprise. My favorite part of this play is its sudden reversal, and the tension was broken only by the audience's nervous laughter.



Next up was the scary - and snarky - vampire play Heart/Succor written by Lisa Huberman and directed by Joe Brofcak. Amanda Berry plays Mina, a sweet young woman on the L train after midnight, minding her own business and reading Stardust - who is approached by a drunken, lecherous hipster, Roger, played by Yuriy Pavlish. Once again, we are concerned for the apparently helpless young woman, only to be shocked. Mina gives into Roger's advances - and then starts drinking his blood. Meghan-Sara Karre was kind enough to cameo in this piece, coming on at the end to deliver the play's final line, "There will be other hipsters."



Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Volunteer Zombies Needed for FRESH BLOOD

Do you practice your zombie face on your morning commute? Do you make zombie moans when you get up in the morning until you get some coffee? Do you go to Zombie Pub Crawls and Zombie Parades? 

 LA PETITE MORGUE needs volunteers for our FRESH BLOOD event on July 17! We need some creepy undead creatures of the night to scare the bejeesus out of our audience while handing out programs and tearing tickets. 

Image by Vince Templement - Copyright KAMELEON STUDIO

If you're interested, and available on the evening of July 17, please write a quick note to: lapetitemorgue@gmail.com - and if you have a picture of yourself in zombie make-up and garb, please send that as well. 

We will also happily consider other undead creatures of the night, such as vampires (non-sparkly kind only!), mummies, ghosts, skeletons, hell-beasts, and demons. You'll help us create a scary atmosphere for the readings, and you'll get to see some of the shows - and maybe even participate in one of them. We promise fun times, and a free Bloody Mary at the Post-Mortem Party. 

La Petite Morgue Presents FRESH BLOOD - Tuesday, July 17. 
Doors open at 7:30, shows begin at 8:00.
The Producers Club - Grand Theatre - 358 W. 44th Street, NYC.
Between 8th & 9th Avenues.
More information & tickets: http://lapetitemorgue.eventbrite.com