Grand Guignol Theatre In San Francisco

Thrillpeddlers have been performing a unique brand of horror and fetish theatre in San Francisco for over a decade. Founded by Russell Blackwood and Daniel Zilber, Thrillpeddlers are continuously engaged in translating, adapting, and producing classic plays from the infamous repertoire of Le Theatre du Grand Guignol. In addition, Thrillpeddlers perform original scripts and modern works by contemporary masters of the genre. Thrillpeddlers’ annual pageant of terror and titillation, Shocktoberfest!!, has become a San Francisco Halloween tradition.

Now Playing: Hypnodrome Head Trips

San Francisco’s sensational Grand Guignol venue pulls out all the stops in a startling line-up of entertainments, indulgences and oddities! Hypnodrome Head Trips, an all-new Thrillpeddlers extravaganza – Every Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, starting March 1st!

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To celebrate being named one of San Francisco’s latest Literary Laureates, “Czar of Noir” Eddie Muller presents his adaptation of ORGY IN THE LIGHTHOUSE, a Grand Guignol classic shocking even by today’s standards. When religious devotion collides head-on with rampant lust during a stormy night in a desolate lighthouse… all hell breaks loose. Russell Blackwood directs Eric Tyson Wertz, Larkin Boero, Joseph Holmes, Leah Dashe, and Yusef Lambert in this sexy, spine-tingling, and combustive one-act drama.

Jean Vadim is a gay-nineties Parisian bon vivant about to be decapitated by the guillotine for a crime he did not commit. Luckily, the prison physician, Dr. Maris, has a method for sustaining Vadim’s life – or the life of his head, at least. THE JULIET DRUG and THE GLASS WOMB, are the first chapters of writer/designer Jonathan Horton’s original theatrical sci-fi serial, premiering at the Hypnodrome and highlighted by fantastic visual effects created and constructed by the author himself!

COBRA, legendary jazz composer John Zorn’s most popular improvisational “game piece,” has been performed – publicly or in private, and never the same way twice – by forward-thinking musicians around the globe. For its Hypnodrome incarnation, musician and video artist Jamie Moore (a Zorn protege) conducts a dazzling, ever-changing roster of superb local talents through the mysterious, playful, and ever-shifting musical terrain that is Cobra. At times it descends into sonic psychodrama – but at its best, it’s magic. Performers are drawn from local bands Disappear Incompletely, Telepathy, Space Heater, Turtle Island String Quartet, Sizemix, Realistic Orchestra, Gubbish, and Embryonic.

CHICK HABIT is an homage to all souls damned to the lake of fire by the gospel tracts of Jack T. Chick. These entertaining – and often terrifying – comic strips were created as “roadside bombs” for use by the evangelical Christian movement. Thrillpeddlers provide the voices, and Chick supplies “the word” in these literal reenactments of the Chick canon: evolution, drugs, sex, witchcraft, gay marriage and eternal damnation all get the fire-and-brimstone Jack T. Chick treatment in this ever-changing cycle of skits.

It takes a big dose of sodium pentathol to “drag” the truth out of THE EMPRESS OF COLMA. The new Queen of the Damned has a secret to keep from her South City gal pals – and it ain’t pretty. Veteran Hypnodrome contributor Rob Keefe pens another hilariously grotesque comedy-thriller that can only lead one place – straight into Thrillpeddlers’ signature “lights out” SPOOKSHOW finale! Buyers of “Shock Boxes” beware! Our private boxes can literally be an electrifying experience!