The Thrillpeddlers and The HOWL! Festival present
VICE PALACE: The Last Cockettes Musical
A Concert Version of the 1972 Musical Revue Extravaganza
Two nights only! October 21 & 22 2011 – 11pm
at Theater 80, 80 St. Marks Place – New York 212-388-0388
Tickets $15 at the box office or at howlfestival.com

AND

Dr. Queen’s Drag Academy Presents
THE MARTIN WORMAN PAPERS
A Panel Presentation with Select Performances
from The Cockettes Repertoire
With Original VICE PALACE Cast Member Mink Stole
October 17 2011 – 6pm
Bruno Walter Auditorium –
New York Library For The Performing Arts
111 Amsterdam Avenue @ 65th Street, New York

Straight from San Francisco, The Thrillpeddlers present a concert version of their smash hit revival, VICE PALACE: The Last Cockettes Musical on Friday & Saturday, October 21 & 22 as part of the 2011 HOWL! Festival, at Theater 80. Selections from the show can be seen earlier in the week at the New York Library for the Performing Arts on Monday, October 17, as part of The Martin Worman Papers – which takes an in-depth look into the life and career Mr. Worman – actor, playwright, lyricist, director, female impersonator, activist and academic.

Loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”, VICE PALACE was written by Martin Worman & Scrumbly Koldewyn in 1972 as a vehicle for Divine and actress Mink Stole (best known as stars of cult-director John Waters’ films), and The Cockettes. VICE PALACE follows Divina, (Leigh Crow), an eccentric and wealthy woman who spares no expense to keep her jet-set party guests entertained, while the villagers just beyond the walls of her lavish estate are ravaged by the plague. Each performance must top the next in this bizarre race to escape the one uninvited party guest – death!

Originally produced as a “Nocturnal Dream Show” and performed at midnight at the old Palace Theatre in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco on Halloween weekend of 1972, VICE PALACE was the fabled and fabulous Cockettes’ final stage presentation.

The HOWL! Festival is a month-long performance series which will take place throughout the month of October (2011) to benefit the HOWL Emergency Life Project (H.E.L.P).  Administered by the Actors Fund, H.E.L.P is an emergency services and health fund available to East Village and downtown artists in need of assistance. HOWL! Arts Project is sponsored by Actors Fund (administrators of H.E.L.P) and presents poetry, theater, film, dance, music and performance art programs.
 
HOWL! Arts channels the spirit and artistic invention of the namesake poem and poet Allen Ginsberg to deliver firsthand examples of the creative, cultural, and historical forces that have made the highly original downtown arts of the EV/LES community world-renowned

Our 12th Annual Extravaganza of Terror and Titillation

A collaboration between the city’s renowned Thrillpeddlers and “Czar of Noir” Eddie Muller, author of the evening’s three plays.

Sept. 23 – Nov. 19, 2011 (Thurs., Fri. & Sat. at 8:00 pm)

At The Hypnodrome
575 10th Street (Bryant and Division)
San Francisco

$25 – Previews and Thursdays
$30 – Fridays and Saturdays
$35 – Shock Box and Turkish Lounge seating

Buy Tickets Online
or call 415-377-4202

The blood-thirsty spectacle of the Grand Guignol seeps into the shadowy cinematic world of film noir in Shocktoberfest 12: FEAR OVER FRISCO, a collaboration between the city’s renowned Thrillpeddlers and “Czar of Noir” Eddie Muller, author of the evening’s three plays. Each tale leads the audience through a different period of terror and titillation in San Francisco’s noir-stained history: the contemporary déjà vu dread of The Grand Inquisitor, the post-WWII hysterics of An Obvious Explanation, and the Prohibition era high- and low-life of The Drug. In addition, Shocktoberfest!! 12: FEAR OVER FRISCO features musical director Scrumbly Koldewyn’s merrily macabre musical production numbers. 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”.

In THE GRAND INQUISITOR, (dir. Eddie Muller) an odd young woman with a cache of used books comes calling on an elderly recluse that she believes is the widow of San Francisco’s most notorious serial killer. Twenty real-time minutes culminate in an unexpected and shocking climax. Cast: Bonni Suval (Lulu), Mary Gibboney (Hazel).

In AN OBVIOUS EXPLANATION (dir. Eddie Muller), a daring heist goes awry when the crook who stashed the loot suffers amnesia. An ambitious doctor intends to solve the problem with her untested “memory” serum. The results are more dramatic than she expected – which is not a good thing. Cast: Daniel Bakken (Lucky), Flynn De Marco (Frank), Bonni Suval ?(Dr. Lorisson), Zelda Koznofski (Sherry).

In THE DRUG (dir. Russell Blackwood), a promising young deputy DA’s efforts to crack the case of a celebrated artist’s disfigurement are thwarted – by the prosecutor’s own desire for the prime suspect. René Berton’s classic two-act Grand Guignol, originally set in Saigon, is transposed and adapted by Muller to 1929 San Francisco. Cast: Eric Tyson Wertz (Brendan McDonagh), Flynn De Marco (Charles Marzac), Kara Emry (Claudine Van Ness), Daniel Bakken (Jefferson Van Ness), Joshua Devore (Bernard Devereux), Russell Blackwood (The Doctor), Jim Jeske (The Captain), Steven Bollinger (The Editor), Ste Fishell (Robert), Birdie-Bob Watt (Luang-Si).

On “Vice Palace:”

Vice Palace” was written because, although the Cockettes had officially disbanded, it was getting close to Halloween. The producer of the Nocturnal Dream midnight shows at the Palace needed a Halloween show, and Divine was in town and Mink Stole. A lot of the Cockettes were still around. Martin, who’d written “Hot Greeks,” was asked to do the script, and I was asked to write the music.

For the revival, I’ve had to expand the script and add about seven songs. It’s a revue, but the glue that holds it together is Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death,” but as seen through Fellini, sort of “La Dolce Vita” or “Juliet of the Spirits.” So it takes place in Italy at the Villa Divina – Divine was the original Divina. Now we have Leigh Crow. Who else could live up to Divine’s image?

So the prince invites all his friends to the villa and seals them all off from the plague that’s raging outside and gives them entertainment – entertainment after entertainment. That’s what makes it a revue. But the thing is, each entertainment has to be progressively more outrageous.

Read the full interview at SFGate.com.

April 22 – July 31, 2011
Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 PM
Sundays at 7:00 PM

At the Hypnodrome – 575 10th St., in SF 94103. (Bryant & Division Sts.)

Tickets available online at BrownPaperTickets.com
or by phone at 800-838-3006

$30 General Admission
$35 Shock Box and Turkish Lounge

Thrillpeddlers are happy to announce that after their record-breaking 22 month run of the award-winning production of PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI, they are presenting composer Scrumbly Koldewyn’s revival of the 1972 Musical revue extravaganza “VICE PALACE: The Last Cockettes Musical” at the Hypnodrome Theatre from April 22 thru July 31, 2011 in SF. With a book by Martin Worman and music composed by Scrumbly Koldewyn, the show was originally performed by The Cockettes during Halloween 1972 at the Palace Theatre in North Beach. This revival has been extensively revised by composer Scrumbly Koldewyn with additional material that originally appeared in past Cockettes productions.

“VICE PALACE: The Last Cockettes Musical” is loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe’s hallucinatory short story, “The Masque of the Red Death,” and the even more hallucinatory 1964 Roger Corman film of that name starring Vincent Price. It also gives a stylistic nod to the early 1960s films of Frederico Fellini, specifically “La Dolce Vita” and “Juliet of the Spirits”. VICE PALACE was originally written as a vehicle for Divine and actress Mink Stole (best known as stars of cult-director John Waters’ films), and The Cockettes.

Originally produced as a “Nocturnal Dream Show” and performed at midnight at the old Palace Theatre in Chinatown on Halloween weekend of 1972, VICE PALACE was the fabled and fabulous Cockettes’ final stage presentation. The Thrillpeddlers revision features selections from other Cockettes shows including “Les Etoiles du Minuit,” “Journey to the Center of Uranus,” and “The Circus of Life.”

“VICE PALACE: The Last Cockettes Musical” is directed by Russell Blackwood, and original Cockette and composer Scrumbly Koldewyn is the Musical Director. Costumes by Kära Emry, lights by Nicholas Torre, sound by Chris Paulina, and make up coordinator Kegel Kater.

Composer Scrumbly Koldewyn plays piano for all performances of “VICE PALACE: The Last Cockettes Musical.” Thrillpeddler and San Francisco favorites will be featured in this new production, including: Leigh Crow (Divina), Flynn DeMarco (Goldoni), Birdie-Bob Watt (Vagina Dentata), Steven Satyricon (Niccolini), Eric Tyson Wertz (Bella), Ste Fishell (Tonio), L. Ron Hubby (Madame X), T.J. Buswell (Paulo), James Toczyl (Polo), Russell Blackwood (Lucretia), and making his Thrillpeddlers debut as Ricciolini is Joshua Devore. ?Best known as former porn star Tober Brandt, Mr. Devore (aka Brandt) was named Best Fetish Performer at the 2009 GayVN Awards.

$25 – $35 general admission
$69 for “Shock Box” seats (admits two)

Tickets are available at BrownPaperTickets.com.

Where can San Franciscans revel in an oddball weekend that alternatively celebrates the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, Friday the 13th and St. Valentine’s Day? At The Hypnodrome, of course, where Thrillpeddlers kick off their 2009 season with benefit performances featuring an audacious and eclectic mix of live music, sensual show-and-tell and on stage interviews with counterculture icons conducted by V. Vale.

Three nights only, these very special events include all-new acts from Thrillpeddlers, EmCee’d by our chubby cherub RJ Owens. The company will also perform songs from their upcoming summer offering, Pearls Over Shanghai, a revival of The Cockettes’ 1971 musical featuring two of the show’s originators, Rumi Missabu and Scrumbly Koldewyn.

Capping off the evenings are V.Vale’s interviews with singer/songwriter Jill Tracy (on 2/12), montage artist Winston Smith (2/13) and punk legend Jello Biafra with The Stooges sax player Steve MacKay (2/14), taping live for Re/Search Publications’ “Counterculture Hour” cable TV show.

Tickets are available at BrownPaperTickets.com.

Richard and Eddie discuss the history of the Grand Guignol, how Noel Coward came to write a Grand Guignol play, how the play was lost and discovered, and our current (U.S. premiere) production at the Hypnodrome. It’s required listening for Noel Coward fans and Grand Guignol fans alike.

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