The program will feature 3 One-Act plays, including the title piece KISS OF BLOOD by Jean Aragny and Francis Neilson, a 1929 shocker from the repertoire of Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol the original French horror theatre, in a new English adaptation by Daniel Zilber (co-founder of Thrillpeddlers), and LIPS OF THE DAMNED and THE EMPRESS OF COLMA, two original plays in the Grand Guignol tradition commissioned by Thrillpeddlers from New York playwright Rob Keefe. The bill culminates with Thrillpeddlers’ famed black-out spook show finale when ghostly apparitions materialize before the audience’s startled eyes. The Hypnodrome’s “Shock Box” seats provide pairs of patrons with privacy and an added jolt of “lights-out thrills.”

KISS OF BLOOD (Le Baiser de sang) caused a sensation when it debuted at infamous Parisian horror theatre, Le Theatre du Grand Guignol in 1929 due to the gruesomeness of its opening scene, set as it is in an operating theatre during the aftermath of a botched brain surgery. At a theatre that had acquired an international reputation for onstage violence, shocking its audience must have been no mean feat – but by confronting the audience with a gruesome tableau the moment the curtain rises, they achieved their goal. The science of brain surgery was still in its infancy, and inexact, to say the least. As the play unfolds, the theme of madness as a surgically operable malady is explored with even more startling developments.

LIPS OF THE DAMNED, suggested by “La Veuve” (a French slang term for The Guillotine, literally “The Widow”), is set in a French museum of torture devices and other antique curiosities, forced to close its doors due to an uncontrollable infestation of starved rats. An illicit amorous tryst is interrupted, or perhaps enhanced, by the intrusion of unwelcome parties.

THE EMPRESS OF COLMA takes place in the basement clubhouse of potential pageant candidates all vying desperately for the title of “Empress of Colma”. Their dental assistant girlfriend, tolerated only for her easy access to pharmaceutical drugs, scores the wrong drugs one fateful day, with hilarious, …albeit disastrous, results.

At intermission, Thrillpeddlers invite audience members to partake in a macabre demonstration of their full-size replica of an 18th century Guillotine. Steady nerves and cameras are a must.

Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome Theatre is located at 575 10th Street, San Francisco. (Bryant & Division Sts.) Tickets for SHOCKTOBERFEST!! 2010 are $25 general admission or $35 premium admission for “Shock Boxes” and “Turkish Lounges” (premium tickets sold in pairs only), and are available at Brown Paper Tickets or by calling 800-838-3006.

Directed by Russell Blackwood
Musical Direction by Richard “Scrumbly” Koldewyn

May 2 – June 27, 2010!
Thursdays at 8:00 PM and Sundays at 7:00 PM

At the Hypnodrome, 575 10th Street, San Francisco [Map]

$30 General Admission
$69 “Shock Box” Seat for 2

Buy Tickets Online

Thrillpeddlers is proud to announce production of a revival of the 1972 Cockettes musical extravaganza HOT GREEKS, an original musical by Martin Worman and Richard “Scrumbly” Koldewyn. This show is part of our 3rd annual Theatre of the Ridiculous Revival, which will play in repertory with performances of the long-running hit musical PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI. Originally produced as a Nocturnal Dream Show and performed at midnight at the Palace Theatre in Chinatown in SF, HOT GREEKS was the fabled & fabulous Cockettes’ only other scripted book musical besides PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI. HOT GREEKS is directed by Russell Blackwood, and original Cockette and composer Richard “Scrumbly” Koldewyn serves as Musical Director. The cast includes SF favorite Connie Champagne, and Thrillpeddlers stalwarts Birdie-Bob Watt, and the ever luminescent Michael Soldier as Lysistrata.

HOT GREEKS plays as a limited engagement – running only 17 performances – Thurs. (8 pm) and Sun. at (7 pm) from May 2–June 27, 2010. Opening Night (press night)– Sun., May 2 at 7 pm. The program will be presented in repertory with Thrillpeddlers’ current production PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI, the Cockettes musical, which will continue to run thru August 1, 2010. Fri. and Sat. – thru June 26, 2010 at 8 pm, in July thru Aug. 1, 2010 Pearls plays Sat. at 8 pm and Sun at 7 pm.

Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome Theatre is located at 575 10th Street, San Francisco. (Bryant & Division Sts.) Tickets are $30 gen. admission or $69 for “Shock Boxes” and “Turkish Lounges**”
(admits two) and are available at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/104118
or by calling 800/ 838- 3006.

Synopsis:

In “Hot Greeks,” college rhythm meets the Peloponnesian War as Athens University takes on
Sparta State for their annual pigskin showdown. This musical, loosely based on Aristophanes’s LYSISTRATA, features the Tri Thigh Sorority girls jiving to the big-band hit parade sounds of the 1940s. The kids sing and dance through the ruins, on their way to consult the Oracle of Delphi (The Hot Twat of Tangier) in their pursuit of victory on the gridiron where quarterback Pendulum Pulaski, the Scarlet Helmet Boy, saves the day for the Gods and Greece.

In addition, Thrillpeddlers revival of HOT GREEKS will be paired with a floorshow of musical selections from other seminal Cockettes shows including: TINSEL TARTS IN A HOT COMA, JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF URANUS (JCU), and VICE PALACE (VP). Divine and Mink Stole who are best known for their work in John Waters’ films were featured in these shows and debuted such chestnuts as “A Crab On Your Anus Means Your Loved” (Divine – JCU), and “No Nose Nanook” (Mink – VP). The Floorshow will occur nightly after a brief intermission after the performance of HOT GREEKS.

A Musical Seance returns to The Hypnodrome!

TWO NIGHTS ONLY:
March 7 & 8, 2010 at 8:00 PM

At The Hypnodrome
575 10th St., San Francisco
Map

Buy Tickets Online

Hailed by LA Weekly as “the cult darling of the underworld,” our favorite chanteuse fatale Jill Tracy returns to Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome to resurrect her wildly popular “Musical Seance”, a collaboration with Atlanta cult composer/violinist Paul Mercer, and featuring master percussionist Randy Odell, and special guests.

PLEASE NOTE: Audience members are asked to bring small objects of special significance, such as a photo, talisman, jewelry, toy, token. This is a very crucial part of manifesting the music.

Since joining forces on Halloween 2007, Jill Tracy and Paul Mercer have become widely known for their astonishing duets on piano and violin, mostly improvised or channeled. The pair affectionately refer to their duets as “spontaneous musical combustion.” Their uncanny ability to conjure spirits through unsettlingly lavish compositions has led to spellbinding results, eerily transporting the room and its rapt audience.

Following the pair’s Music Seance last year in Victoria B.C, a man approached violinist Paul Mercer: “While you were playing, I could see a figure looming behind you, a man, he was soaking wet.” He had no idea that the antique violin Mercer was playing that evening belonged to a murder victim who was drowned in a river.

The duo were commissioned to compose the popular Midnight Waltz at the 2008 International Ball of the Vampires (Portland, OR), a dramatic and ambitious work entitled “Coronation of the Witch Queen.” The waltz was later featured when Jill Tracy and Paul Mercer were the headlining performers at Anne Rice’s legendary Halloween Ball in New Orleans.

Tracy and Mercer will be directly returning from concerts in Spain and Portugal (February 2010) to perform A Musical Seance at the Hypnodrome.

Legendary author Clive Barker states: “Jill Tracy creates an elegant netherworld both seductive and terrifying.”

V. Vale of RE/Search publications described a Jill Tracy/Paul Mercer Seance as “Sheer magic! Perfection. Improvised… If you’re lucky enough to be there, you realize you’ve just had a hint of something extra-mortal, uber-human, transcendent – maybe the concentrated ghosts of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater or the Commedia Dell’arte of the past are swirling around the room . . . and you think that THIS is the new avant-garde: live, un-censored, living theater.”

A recent interview in Tor.com describes the Jill Tracy/Paul Mercer Seance as “musical psychometry.”

“These compositions are delicate and glorious living things they materialize, they transport, and in the same second they vanish,” explains Jill Tracy of the Musical Seance. “They embody the fragile essence of Time. No two shows are ever alike, we have no control, that is the rare beauty of it.”

“A Musical Seance” brings it one step further– harnessing the energy of the audience, a synergistic summoning of what dwells within each of us.

Mercer, whose collection of ages-old violins each tells its own story, was the impetus for his highly regarded “Ghosts” CD and lecture series. His personal instrument collection features very unique voices, spirits with such strong personalities they have their own names. His current instruments include a mysterious late 19th century violin named Daphne, a luminous late 17th century violin named Abigail, and a stunning 1820 Viola named Henryetta. Paul has had the fortune to play some powerful instruments such as 1842 Nicolas Vuillaume, two Stradivari, including the magnificent Firebird Stradivari 1718 ex Saint Exupery.

Buy Tickets Online

At the Hypnodrome, 575 10th Street, San Francisco

$25 General Admission
$69 “Shock Box” Seat for 2
Buy Tickets Online

Press/Media Info

Thrillpeddlers are proud to announce our signature Halloween show “Shocktoberfest!! 2009: The Torture Garden,” our tenth annual pageant of titillating Grand Guignol terror plays and stimulating sex farces, running Thursdays and Fridays at 8:00pm from October 1 through November 20. The program will be presented in repertory with Thrillpeddlers’ current production “Pearls Over Shanghai,” the Cockettes musical, which will continue to run on Saturdays at 8:00pm and Sundays at 7:00pm through November 22.

“Shocktoberfest!! 2009” will consist of two plays, “The Torture Garden” (1922) by Pierre Chaine and Andre de Lorde, and “The Phantom Limb,” an original play in the Grand Guignol tradition commissioned by the Thrillpeddlers from New York playwright Rob Keefe, from whose fetid mind have sprung many previous Shocktoberfest!! offerings.

“The Torture Garden (Le Jardin des supplices)” is based on the infamous novel by Octave Mirbeau, once described as “the most sickening work of art of the nineteenth century.” Mirbeau’s sensual and disturbing novel follows a young man’s journey to the ends of desire and depravity in a grand Chinese palace garden where torture is enjoyed and practiced as a form of art itself—and of the mysterious woman who leads him there. As adapted by Chaine and de Lorde, the play is an excellent example of Orientalism, a wildly popular artistic movement in Paris in the 1920s, depicting hostile and deprecatory views of the East as interpreted and shaped by the attitudes of 19th century Europeans. Well-known examples of Orientalism from this period are Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado,” Oscar Wilde’s “Salome” (and the Richard Strauss opera upon which it was based), John Colton’s play “The Shanghai Gesture” (upon whidh “Pearls Over Shanghai” was loosely based), and Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan.”

“The Phantom Limb” is set in a New Orleans brothel during the days immediately following the American Civil War, where a rag-tag parade of wounded and mutilated Confederate soldiers have gathered for solace and healing at the hands of a money-hungry madam, who is only too willing to supply the young soldiers with their every need—until a dark and mysterious stranger arrives at her door one sultry afternoon.