"Hiding the Crazy" with Lisa Huberman

Next in our series of Playwright Interviews, we talked to Lisa Huberman, author of Heart/Succor.

We asked Lisa what her play is about. Her answer included: love (just kidding), survival, capitalism, traveling, and, the roles we play to keep people from realizing that we're - well, crazy...

We asked her what scared her as a child. Apparently she found the ending of The Little Mermaid quite terrifying. 

Perhaps most fascinating is her answer to what scares her now. Watch the video to find out.

This video also features footage from the recent reading at [Untitled]! Get a sneak peek at this "Strangers on a Train" horror play! Performances by Lisa Huberman herself as Mina, and Yuriy Pavlish as Roger, with Meghan-Sara Karre as Lavinia.

"Highly Gifted Amateurs"

"...I have nothing against gangsters, you understand. Some very delightful murders have been committed by professional criminals. By and large, however, the more interesting work in this field is done by amateurs. Highly gifted amateurs, but still amateurs. They are people who perform their work with dignity, good taste and originality, leavened with a sense of the grotesque."

-- Alfred Hitchcock in the preface to Twelve Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do on TV

I didn't realize it until I actually counted, but all four plays being read at [Untitled] on Thursday - all four - feature murders. And none of the murderers are "professional" criminals, thugs, or lunatics. That's a big part of what makes them scary. These are murderers who could easily be the person sitting across from you on the subway, the dude you met at the bar last night, your husband, or your child...

Hitchcock was onto something.

Come to [Untitled] to hear the unspeakable horrors! And bring your friends! There's safety in numbers.

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Excerpt from an Interview with Joe Brofcak, Writer of "In Sickness"

We recently interviewed Joe Brofcak, writer of the ten-minute zombie-apocalypse thriller In Sickness. Joe told us about his play, in which "dudes in suits kill zombies with Berettas." We asked him what scared him as a child - and he told us about his fear of, and fascination with, Freddy Kruger, and Pin-Head from Hellraiser.

And then I asked him, "What scares you now?" Watch for his answer.



I apologize for my omnipresent laughter in the background.

Christine Croyden's "The Cat's Paw"

Christine Croyden is an Australian playwright who sent La Petite Morgue one of our favorite submissions, a short play called Lovesick, which will be read at [Untitled] on Thursday, June 28 at Happy Ending. Her play The Cat's Paw is currently being produced by Spotlight Theatre Company in Adelaide. Below is the preview. I don't know about any of you, but I find it rather unnerving. 

It makes me wish I lived in Australia, so I could go and see it. But for those of you who live in New York, and not Australia, you can come and hear a reading of Christine's play Lovesick at [Untitled] on Thursday, June 28. Doors open at 7:30, and the readings begin at 8:00. It's a free sneak peek at the unspeakable carnage to come at Fresh Blood (July 17 at the Producers Club)! In addition to Lovesick, you'll also get to see Heart/Succor, written by Lisa Huberman, and With You, written and performed by Chris Van Strander. Mingle, drink, and be scary!

Our Events in June & July

La Petite Morgue Co-Hosts [UNTITLED]
Thursday, June 28 at Happy Ending
302 Broome Street, NYC

Every month, Inkslingers hosts a reading series called [Untitled]. Playwrights read from new and in-process works at the Happy Ending Lounge downtown. On Thursday, June 28, La Petite Morgue is coming to take the Happy out of your Ending with an evening of ghost stories, psycho killer confessions, ugly monsters, and a special appearance by The Zombie Mafia.

The doors open at 7:30, the show starts at 8:00. No cover, no "drink minimum". It's a chance to Mingle, Drink, and Be Scary. Help us spread the word by sharing our event on your Facebook Wall and inviting your friends.

Featuring:

• You Lost a Lot of Blood by Mike Mariano
• With You by Chris Van Strander 
• Heart/Succor by Lisa Huberman
• Lovesick by Christine Croyden

Pro Tip: Happy Ending is completely impossible to recognize from the outside!

FRESH BLOOD 

Tuesday, July 17 at the Grand Theatre 
The Producers Club - 358 W. 44th Street, NYC

La Petite Morgue presents an evening of live horror like you've never seen before - our first-ever FRESH BLOOD event! Enjoy staged readings of these new short works of horror:

• In Sickness by Joe Brofcak
• Heart/Succor by Lisa Huberman
• Circles by Steven Korbar
• You Lost a Lot of Blood by Mike Mariano
• Bloody Mary by Aleks Merilo
• Posers by Laura Pfizenmayer
  
• My Sexy Doll by Stanley Toledo
• With You by Chris Van Strander
• All the Way to Crawfordville by Le Wilhelm
• What Would You, How Would You, Who Would You? by Kymm Zuckert

(Virtual) Auditions for La Petite Morgue

La Petite Morgue is always looking for actors to participate in our monthly reading series, Fresh Blood, which takes place on the first Wednesday of every month at Happy Ending Lounge in lower Manhattan. To audition for La Petite Morgue, you can send an e-mail at any time to: lapetitemorgue@gmail.com that includes the following:

• 90-second audition video (links and attachments are both acceptable)
• Headshot
• Resume

We will keep your materials on file and contact you for future readings and productions. If you are not able to send a video, we will try to schedule face-to-face auditions twice a year.

Please Note:  

• Actors must be 21 years or older to participate in Fresh Blood.
•  We cannot offer payment to actors at this time. Actors who participate in the Fresh Blood Reading Series are compensated with vouchers for free drinks. 
• Actors who are members of AEA or other professional unions are responsible for securing any relevant permissions from their governing agency.

This Explains Everything

I talked to my father this morning - yes, to borrow money - and he told me that he was recently reminded, probably by all my aggressive facebook updating - of an incident that occurred when I was about ten years old. 

Some of you reading already know that Halloween is my birthday, but for those of you who didn't, yes, I am a witch/demon spawn/pumpkin-headed weirdo. As a kid, there's really nothing better than a Halloween birthday. You get to dress up and beg for candy, but you also get presents. And I think for the first couple of years, I probably thought, on some level, that everyone was dressing up and trick-or-treating in honor of my birthday. Which was probably a nice ego trip.

One year old. I am a fisherman!

All this is just to set up the fact that on my tenth (or so?) birthday, I got my father to take my brother and I to a haunted house. Now, this was probably the kind of thing that the Lexington, Illinois 4-H Club set up in a barn as a fundraiser for the annual middle school field trip, but my father says that it was actually pretty scary. I don't actually remember any of the details he told me about, like the strobe lights and what not. I just remember being so frightened that I FLIPPED THE FUCK OUT and they had to take my brother, my father, and I on a backstage tour to calm me down. 

I have a vague recollection of alarmed grown-ups taking off their masks and being like, "It's okay, it is pretend." And bending the plastic knives to show how fake they were. They were like, "Chill out, little girl, no one here is going to hurt you." Memory is a tricky thing, but I'm pretty sure I just kept bawling. Sometimes when someone wants to make a kid stop crying, that just makes it worse. (Someone trying, really hard, to convince you that they're not evil can seem like it's all part of their plan to chainsaw-massacre you. Especially when you are ten.) But eventually they got us outside, and I waited about 15 years before I set foot in another haunted house. And I made sure to be pretty drunk.