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Friday, November 8, 2013
Thursday, November 7, 2013
News From Our Performers & Writers
Last night, we held our second edition of Fresh Blood at The Dressing Room Boutique & Bar, featuring plays by Trystin Bailey, Ria Hill, and Eric LaRocca. If you missed the fun - or you're just hungry for more - check out these upcoming events:
- Aleks Merilo, writer of Bloody Mary, will see Sanguine Theatre Company premiere his new play Exit 37, November 7-10 & 13-17.
- Chelsea Holland is featured in M is for Mammary, a short film from the "The ABC's of Horror" competition, now available for viewing online.
- Adriana Jones will be singing in And You Were Wonderful, a new musical production, November 8-10 at the National Academy Museum.
- Molly Lisenco performs with her comedy group The Internet Disagrees With You, November 8 in Astoria.
- Elizabeth Weitzen stars in We Might Be Superheroes, a campy-fun web series by Amusement Films.
- Lisa Huberman, writer of Ghost-Busted and Heart/Succor, will have her short Life Play read as part of New Light Theatre's Dark Room Series, November 14 & 15 at Access Theatre.
And, on the off-chance that you're in New Jersey and enjoy suspense plays, make sure you check out True Story by EM Lewis at Passage Theatre in Trenton, November 7-24.
If anyone has any short horror plays that are related to PROM, please send it immediately to: lapetitemorgue@gmail.com - The next edition of Fresh Blood will be on Wednesday, December 4, so check back for details, my little ghouls and goblins!
<3,
LPM
Thursday, October 3, 2013
November Theme: It's Crazy!
Next month's Fresh Blood theme will be Lunatics & Lost Souls. Send us your short horror plays about mental illness, psycho killers, hallucinations, the institutionalized & the incarcerated. Please send your plays to lapetitemorgue@gmail.com by October 26; readings will be held November 6.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
News From Our Performers & Writers
It's a busy time of year for La Petite Morgue's actors and playwrights! In addition to the latest installment of FRESH BLOOD on September 4 at Happy Ending, these are a few shows this month featuring familiar faces:
- Adriana Jones opens her one-woman show Vivien On the Rocks on September 5 at Theatre Row.
- Amanda Berry is performing in The Oedipus Project with New Light Theater, September 5-15.
- Lisa Huberman's LIFE PLAY premieres as part of the new competitive one-act festival at The Secret Theatre, September 6, 8, 13 & 15. Lisa is the author of Heart/Succor and Ghost-Busted, as well as an LPM guest-blogger.
- Joe Brofcak's I Can Build You will be presented by the Endangered Artists Sanctuary, September 11-15 at the Producers Club. You may remember Joe's plays In Sickness, Endless Tomorrows, and/or The State. I Can Build You is directed by frequent-Fresh-Blooder Yuriy Pavlish, and the cast includes Joe Caintic and Aaron Kapner.
I also want to mention that The Dead Dream Machine is playing September 18 - October 13 at La Luz. Make sure you check it out - us horror people have to stick together.
Are you involved with a show this month in the NYC area that you'd like us to mention? Drop us a line at: lapetitemorgue@gmail.com
And don't forget to submit your ghostly new short plays for FRESH BLOOD: Conversations With Dead People. The deadline to submit is September 21, and the selected plays will be read on October 2.
<3,
LPM
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Upcoming "Fresh Blood" Reading Events
Hey, writers! You only have
two days left to submit your short "Break-Ups From Hell" horror play for us to read at Fresh Blood on Wednesday, September 7.
We're also accepting plays to read at Fresh Blood on Wednesday, October 2, when our theme will be "Conversations With Dead People". The deadline for that theme isn't until September 21. Even if you don't have a short horror play with ghosts in it just lying around, you still have time to write one especially for us!
We at La Petite Morgue are always accepting submissions for our Fresh Blood Reading Series, which takes place the first Wednesday night of each month at 8pm at Happy Ending Lounge. Please read our full submission guidelines and send your submission to: LaPetiteMorgue@gmail.com
And don't forget to join us for Fresh Blood: Break-Ups From Hell on Wednesday, September 7 at 8:00, which will feature In The Basement by Julia Rae Maldonado. You get to see our lovely acting ensemble read new works of horror, drink, and give us your opinion on the ones you'd like to see us produce. There is no charge for admission, and it's a great way to get involved in making horror happen in NYC.
Until then - stay scary, New York!
<3,
LPM
We're also accepting plays to read at Fresh Blood on Wednesday, October 2, when our theme will be "Conversations With Dead People". The deadline for that theme isn't until September 21. Even if you don't have a short horror play with ghosts in it just lying around, you still have time to write one especially for us!
We at La Petite Morgue are always accepting submissions for our Fresh Blood Reading Series, which takes place the first Wednesday night of each month at 8pm at Happy Ending Lounge. Please read our full submission guidelines and send your submission to: LaPetiteMorgue@gmail.com
And don't forget to join us for Fresh Blood: Break-Ups From Hell on Wednesday, September 7 at 8:00, which will feature In The Basement by Julia Rae Maldonado. You get to see our lovely acting ensemble read new works of horror, drink, and give us your opinion on the ones you'd like to see us produce. There is no charge for admission, and it's a great way to get involved in making horror happen in NYC.
Until then - stay scary, New York!
<3,
LPM
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Friday, March 22, 2013
Guest Post: Overcoming the Desensitization of Horror Fans
Jacob Mielke is the author of the horror play The Sacrifice. This is his first guest post for La Petite Blog.
I don’t know if you guys know this, but writing horror plays is kinda hard. It’s not so surprising, really. Just look at the horror genre in the film industry today. When was the last time you saw something truly scary? I’m talking “Oh my goodness I must cover my eyes and plug my ears lest this madness force me to evacuate bowel and bladder right here while I sob like a soap opera star watching Titanic” scary.
The last time I watched something that scary, I was fourteen. I was locked in a dark room in a dark house while The Grudge played on a TV that I couldn’t turn off or even turn down (Don’t ask).
The last time I watched something that scary, I was fourteen. I was locked in a dark room in a dark house while The Grudge played on a TV that I couldn’t turn off or even turn down (Don’t ask).
Today, I can watch that and worse with no problem at all. I am a victim of something far scarier than any horror movie…desensitization (Cue recorded scream of B-Movie actress from the fifties).
We horror fans have a (usually) inevitable result of our love of horror; we cease to scare easily. This poses a particular problem for people who specialize in entertaining audiences with horror (Like me, damn it); how are we supposed to scare an audience that’s already seen it all, heard it all, bathed in the blood of it all?
It’s ultimately up to everyone to find their own way of making it work but I have my own techniques that I’m willing to share with the world since so few theaters make good horror theatre and I can’t afford to drive to New York every month to see shows by La Petite Morgue (wink wink).
Technique # 1: Create characters the audience connects with and likes, place them in high-tension, suspenseful situations, then mutilate the shit out of them. Kind of self-explanatory, really. If the audience doesn’t like the characters, then there’s no reason for them to care whether they live or die, and all the suspense is gone. As Alfred Hitchcock once said: “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” So, loss of suspense is kind of a show-killer.
Technique # 2: Bloody blood all over the bloody place. Blood on the walls, blood on the floor, blood on the characters, blood in the characters’ hair, blood in the stage manager’s coffee and sometimes even blood on the audience. Don’t get me wrong, gore effects do not make or break a show. If something isn’t scary, blood won’t make it scary but if something is scary, then blood can help make it even scarier. No offense to the theaters who can’t afford blood effects, but some of the suspense and illusion is lost when the character carving unholy symbols into his body is doing so via his mad miming skills.
Technique #3: Audience participation. This is a controversial tactic and sometimes requires the signing of a release form but there’s no way to get an audience clenched up faster than to break the fourth wall a little and include them in the hijinks. Example: I once saw a show with actors planted in the audience. They slumped in their seats as if dead and were covered in dried blood. This alone was enough to unsettle people and almost no one wanted to sit near them. They also looked wildly uncomfortable when the corpses stood up and made their way to the stage. Boom, the audience is held in suspense before the damn show even starts. That was a masterful use of suspense. If it had been thought up by me, I’d say it was perfect.
Horror audiences just don’t scare like they used to. I remember a time when one could stage Dracula and people would be genuinely frightened by it. These days, Dracula is usually presented as more of a drama than anything else.
We horror fans have a (usually) inevitable result of our love of horror; we cease to scare easily. This poses a particular problem for people who specialize in entertaining audiences with horror (Like me, damn it); how are we supposed to scare an audience that’s already seen it all, heard it all, bathed in the blood of it all?
It’s ultimately up to everyone to find their own way of making it work but I have my own techniques that I’m willing to share with the world since so few theaters make good horror theatre and I can’t afford to drive to New York every month to see shows by La Petite Morgue (wink wink).
Technique # 1: Create characters the audience connects with and likes, place them in high-tension, suspenseful situations, then mutilate the shit out of them. Kind of self-explanatory, really. If the audience doesn’t like the characters, then there’s no reason for them to care whether they live or die, and all the suspense is gone. As Alfred Hitchcock once said: “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” So, loss of suspense is kind of a show-killer.
Technique # 2: Bloody blood all over the bloody place. Blood on the walls, blood on the floor, blood on the characters, blood in the characters’ hair, blood in the stage manager’s coffee and sometimes even blood on the audience. Don’t get me wrong, gore effects do not make or break a show. If something isn’t scary, blood won’t make it scary but if something is scary, then blood can help make it even scarier. No offense to the theaters who can’t afford blood effects, but some of the suspense and illusion is lost when the character carving unholy symbols into his body is doing so via his mad miming skills.
Technique #3: Audience participation. This is a controversial tactic and sometimes requires the signing of a release form but there’s no way to get an audience clenched up faster than to break the fourth wall a little and include them in the hijinks. Example: I once saw a show with actors planted in the audience. They slumped in their seats as if dead and were covered in dried blood. This alone was enough to unsettle people and almost no one wanted to sit near them. They also looked wildly uncomfortable when the corpses stood up and made their way to the stage. Boom, the audience is held in suspense before the damn show even starts. That was a masterful use of suspense. If it had been thought up by me, I’d say it was perfect.
Horror audiences just don’t scare like they used to. I remember a time when one could stage Dracula and people would be genuinely frightened by it. These days, Dracula is usually presented as more of a drama than anything else.
 |
| This Dracula is scary, but not in the way he intends. |
You have to really work to overcome that desensitization. Show them something they’re not used to. Bring them out of their comfort zones. Do they expect to be scared by going to see a play and then sitting quietly in the audience until it’s over? No, of course not. So, make sure that’s not all they’re doing.
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