WildClaw Theatre and Friends are Abbie Festering This Weekend!

Chicago Storefront Elder God Mary Arrchie Theatre is celebrating its 25th year of mad science onstage at Abbie Hoffman Died for Our Sins Theatre Festival, and this year it's bigger and better than ever, with a NEW VENUE and multiple stages! This is an all day, all night theatre festival that runs from Friday at 7 pm until Sunday night/Monday morning at midnight...ish, so spike some coffee and stay up late with WildClaw this weekend, won't you? There are too many fiends and familiars involved to mention them all, but here's a little taste of what our company members and collaborators will have brewing this weekend at the beautiful Den Theatre. Listed in order of performance, to help you plan your trip:

Friday Night August 9, 2013, on Stage 1, at 9:15 PM
AND
Sunday August 11 at 5:00 pm 

CAREENING THEATRE presents DREAM CATCHERS & OTHER ODDITIES

3 Macabrities by Dave Skvarla

This horror triptych features GONE FISHING,  Directed by Jen Poulin; and DREAM CATCHERS &  MAGIC LOVE POTION, Directed by Dave Skvarla. And after the Main Course of Macabrity, they may have a little something special for you for dessert. Featuring WildClaw company member Mandy Walsh, plus Catherine Dughi, Kristin Morris, Brian Pastor, & Dave Skvarla.

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Friday Night/Saturday Morning, on Stage 1, at 1:40 am

WILDCLAW THEATRE PRESENTS: BITS AND PIECES  

It's late and though the shop is closed, the Owner is always willing to let you in to see what little knick knacks he has in the basement.  In the style of Tales from the Crypt and Creepshow, WildClaw invites you to sample its horror anthology series: BITS AND PIECES. Join our host, Brian Amidei, as Michaela Petro and Josh Zagoren perform three assorted devious little deadtime stories including WildClaw Artistic Associate Christopher Hainsworth's radio play TWO FLAT for those brave enough to enter the Old Curiosity Shoppe. Directed by guest artist Katy Collins.

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Friday Night/Saturday Morning, on Stage 1, at 12:55 am 

Factory Theater has been a supporter of Mary Arrchie Theater and Rich Cotovsky for a long time, and we always love kickin' ass at the Abbie. This year is no exception:  we're bringing "Guardians of Rock" by Managing Director Carrie Sullivan to the Den. Directed by Robyn Coffin, rock stars Courtney Love, Meg White of the White Stripes, D'arcy from the Smashing Pumpkins, and Ann Wilson from Heart are called on by a powerful Shadowy Figure to protect the world against shitty music. Their target: Taylor Swift!
Starring Laura McKenzie, Jill Oliver, Jen Pompa, Christine Jennings, Kristen King, Blake Dalzin, Johnny Moran, Tim Ballard

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Saturday Night on Stage 2B, at 6:30 pm

Sadie and the stark is a chicago based rock group with lyrics based out of fantastical worlds and music with a 90′s influence.  At least thats where we are now folks…Hear Sadie and her haunting tunes at Abbie, then catch her again as our special musical guest in our September installment of WildClaw in the Wild!

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Saturday Night on Stage Not 2B (no, really!) at 10:30 pm

Looking for Love is the only live dating game show and cabaret in the Universe! Each month we feature special musical and comical guests and your co-hosts slather you with dating advice and good ol' Dean and Jerry antics, with the welcome addition of cleavage. With special guest co-host Mallory Nees and creator and co-host Carolyn Hoerdemann, and of course super sexy bachelors and a bachelorette with magic powers! Music provided by half a snark aka the Grappling Snark! 

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Sunday Night on Stage 1 at 8:00 pm 

Join Hobo Junction as they attempt, once again, to catch lightning in a bottle (or maybe just chew open some glow sticks), in this sort-of sequel to last year's Abbie Fest sensation, "An Awful Night of Crap." This year's entry, "An Awful Night of Crap: Miami (Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire)," will explore the world of underground crime in the city - kind of.  Trust us, you don't know horror until you've seen Hobo Junction's comedy. Featuring WildClaw company member Josh Zagoren, plus Hannah Alcorn, Tom Daily, Spenser Davis, Sydney Davis, Emily Demko, Ben Hertel, Dan Krall, Isaac Samuelson, Betsy Shirey, and Chris Waldron

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That's just a tiny sample of what will be going on all weekend, starting at 7 p.m. Friday, August 9th! Check out the Full festival schedule here: http://maryarrchie.com/wordpress/abbie/

Our Panel at c2E2 yall! BE THERE!!!-WildClaw Presents: Deathscribe! Writing and Producing Horror Radio Plays

Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) 2013 Session Details - WildClaw Presents: Deathscribe! Writing and Producing Horror Radio Plays

WILDCLAW PRESENTS: DEATHSCRIBE! WRITING AND PRODUCING HORROR RADIO PLAYS #35

Date: Saturday, April 27
12:15 pm - 1:15 pm

Location: W473

Speakers: Allison Amidei, Brian Amidei, Chris Hainsworth, Paul Foster, Scott T. Barsotti

Description:
WildClaw Theatre, Chicago's Horror Theatre Company, brings you a small taste of its Annual Deathscribe Horror Radio Play Festival! Our panel of Chicago actors, playwrights, foley artists, and artists will discuss the challenges of writing and producing audio dramas with a focus on creation, execution, foley work, voice acting, and finding your audience. Then watch and listen as we perform a spooky radio play complete with foley work!

Tracks:
Performance, Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Two things you should be doing tonight or next weekend....Kill Me or Hunger

Okay...So tonight we open Kill Me.  It is freaky and weird and fantastic.  Watching yesterday's preview made me sick to my stomach a bit and gave me nightmares.  This is a good thing.  You should get your tickets as soon as possible.  We still have like two left for this evening.  If you are not seeing Kill Me tonight....then it better be because you are seeing Hunger over at Lifeline...adapted by WildClaw Associate and Deathscriber of Doom, Chris Hainsworth. 

You really only have two options.  See them both soon.

MEET THE DEATHSCRIBE 2011 FINALISTS (Part 1 of 5)

We're really effing excited about this year's DEATHSCRIBE Finalists. But just who are these literary geniuses of the sonically spooky, the musically macabre, the aurally atrocious? In this five part mini-interview series, you'll get to know a little bit about each twisted writer, and their equally demented director.

We're going to kick things off with two familiar faces: Chris Hainsworth and Carolyn Klein, who will be teaming up on Chris's play, Legacy. Chris is well-known to DEATHSCRIBE audiences, as he has been a finalist all four years. Damn sir. Carolyn directed last year's winning radio play, The Change in Buckett County by David Schmidt, and performed in the first DEATHSCRIBE in 2008.

LEGACY
Written by 2009 Bloody Axe Winner Christopher Hainsworth

Directed by Carolyn Klein

WildClaw: You've been included in every Deathscribe so far, clearly your radio plays are exceptional. What's your approach to writing for radio, any tips and tricks you care to share?

Chris Hainsworth: First - thank you.

You really have to take the medium into account. Both to take advantage of the perks and to accept the limitations. As opposed to prose novel or short stories which have the advantage of allowing you to know everything that is happening both physically and mentally in the moment, or film which opens up the story to editing and controlling where the audiences attention is focused, or even the stage which can give you the elements of visual shocks and physical spacial relationships of the participants - I know it sounds obvious - but with Audio - you just have the sounds and the words.

The challenge is conveying the same amount of information without the benefit of one of your five senses. And for human beings - one of the two main senses that alert us to danger.

The challenge comes in conveying this information in a seemingly organic way.

I always try to avoid having characters DESCRIBE actions to another character in the room because they are both there - they can both see what is happening - why on earth would they say it out loud? 'Dear God Frank! Why are you jamming that strange dagger with those Celtic runes on it repeatedly in and out of your eye! I must now run up these rickety stairs and grab the sacrificial bowl and pour this jar of Holy Water into it in order to break the Gypsy Curse that was placed on you before all of these events happened!"

If you find yourself having to go into a detailed description of what the sound/foley is - generally you need to scrap it and start over. For two reasons - 1. Either the sound should be instantly identifiable so as not to impede the story or 2. Suggestive enough to get the audience's imaginations to do the work for you. Having been to all of the Deathscribes, you would be amazed with what can be done with a several stalks of celery or a tub of gack.

In any medium - exposition is always the bear waiting to attack you. I always try to either find a way to convey as much possible through dialogue or come up with a convention that allows someone to talk directly to the audience. Think about what your characters know and why they would be talking about whatever you need to convey.

On the less technical side - start with character. What do these people want? And what are they doing to try and get it. Everyone - especially when you only have ten minutes - should have a clear goal and objectives. I try to make sure no one is just fodder.

WC: "Legacy" creeped us out. What is it about "Legacy" that creeps you out?

CH: You can tell a lot about what an author is afraid of by what they write. With the exception of Career Day - which was more of a lark on the hypocrisy of any adult/child relationship and how that can be perverted - the other pieces that have been selected for Deathscribe seem thematically linked with the idea of becoming trapped or being unable to move on. In Remembrance it was literally being trapped by your own memories. In D'arque House it was being trapped by grief. In Legacy - it is being trapped by your anger and the wrongs that you believe have been done to you. I know enough to not go into the spooky haunted house. I know not to go to the camp or town where people have been hacked to death for years running. I know that once crap starts moving freely around your house or voices start coming out of your TV - you get out. I guess what I am most afraid of is not exterior forces planning my demise - the other - but those things inside myself - the things that make me fixate on the negative - the inability to let go of things that even I know I would be better off without. I think that we are more dangerous to ourselves than the monster hiding under the bed is. So to me - what is creepy is getting so caught up in something - an emotion - an obsession - that it leads you places that you would be better off not going. And that your life could have been saved had you only been able to let it go.

WC: What's the sound cue in your piece that you're excited to hear in foley?

CH: Oooh. Not a whole lot of eerie sound cues in this one. But I am excited to see what a director might want to do with some. Oh - and not foley - but I am excited to hear "the switch."

COME HEAR 'LEGACY' PERFORMED LIVE AT DEATHSCRIBE 2011

Chris Hainsworth hadn't really written anything until 2006 when Hank Boland created the Strawdog Writing Initiative henceforth to be known as the Strawdog Hit Factory, where he matriculated with WildClaw Artistic Director Aly Renee Amidei. The focus was writing 10 minute audio plays of any genre. He turned in a ten minute piece that was actually thirty minutes long called "Teeth." A horror story about a slacker who is given the ability to read minds and the sad end he comes to. Since then, ten minute audio plays have become a staple of his writing. The greatest challenge always being to keep it to TEN MINUTES. Now an ensemble member at Lifeline, he is currently adapting Hunger, the debut novel by Elise Blackwell for their 2011-2012 season. When not writing - Chris also spends his time acting, recently playing the titular role in Lifeline's The Count of Monte Cristo. Chris would like to thank his wife, Katie (also an award winning playwright) for her continual support and for her editorial input on all of his work.


Carolyn Klein is delighted to be back after directing last year's Bloody Axe Winner, "The Change in Buckett County" by David Schmidt. Carolyn has also directed That Was Then with Seanachai Theatre Company - where she is a proud Ensemble member and Mr. Spacky and Elephant with The Strange Tree Group where she is Artistic Associate. Additionally, she has directed The Artist Needs a Wife at the side project, for Strawdog’s Hit Factory and Dry Hump Sketch Comedy. While pursuing her MFA at Indiana University - Bloomington, Carolyn directed Fool for Love, Lysistrata and Art Whore. As an actor, Carolyn has worked with Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Next Theatre, Seanachai, Strawdog Theatre, Profiles Theatre, The Hypocrites, Wildclaw Theatre, Theo Ubique, The Strange Tree Group and New Leaf.

DEATHSCRIBE 2010 Final Lineup

After months of reading, we have made our final decisions for DEATHSCRIBE 2010. Before going any further, we at WildClaw want to sincerely thank EACH AND EVERY author who submitted a script for this years festival. We are humbled and honored that so many talented, passionate people were willing to share their talent with us. This was the most competitive crop of scripts we've received to date, and we were very excited by the quantity and quality of horror plays we had the pleasure of reading. We had some very hard decisions to make, and we thank everyone who submitted for your contribution. Radio horror is alive and well!

That said, we are very pleased to announce our lineup for

DEATHSCRIBE 2010, The Third Annual International Festival of Radio Horror Plays

Featuring:

CHATTER, by Newt Calkins, directed by Greg Kolack

TAPE DECK, by Liz Siedt, directed by Bob Fisher

MONITOR SPECTARE, by Jude Mire, directed by Lance Baker

THE D'ARQUE HOUSE, by Christopher Hainsworth, directed by Nic Dimond

THE CHANGE IN BUCKETT COUNTY, by David Schmidt, directed by Carolyn Klein.

We hope to see you at the Mayne Stage, on Monday, December 6th, 8pm. Tickets on sale now.

Stephen King's The Dark Tower series coming to a theatre near you, and your television.

Our good friend and newly christened Lifeline Theatre Company Member, pop culture expert Chris Hainsworth (whom WildClaw fans surely remember as Sheriff Raven from 'Dreams in the Witch House'), recently brought this to our attention.

Universal's unprecedented plans for Stephen King's 'The Dark Tower.'

Universal Pictures and NBC Universal Television Entertainment have closed a deal to turn Stephen King’s mammoth novel series The Dark Tower into a feature film trilogy and a network TV series, both of which will be creatively steered by the Oscar-winning team behind A Beautiful Mind and The Da Vinci Code.

Thoughts? Excitement? Trepidations?

Strawdog's Plea Circus featuring Radio Plays Written by Me & Deathscribe Winner Chris Hainsworth!

Finally, a theatre company shameless enough finish out a season with a fundraising telethon.

Over two nights, four programs of our best original late-night material (and you don't have to stay up past midnight)! Our engaging and intriguing Hit Factory radio plays, original music from our shows, and personal essays, all mixed up with the most absurd and heartfelt pleas for money we can think of. And each night at 11pm, a new episode of Strawdog’s own Theatre Wars! Root for your favorite theatre companies as they compete for bragging rights and an ad in our program!

FRIDAY:
Features the Hit Factory pieces 'The Jazz Man of Jackson Square' by Aly Greaves and 'Remembrance' by Chris Hainsworth (both directed by Artistic Director Nic Dimond) as well as the personal essays 'One For Sorrow' by Anita Deely and 'How I Became A Robot' by Sean Mallary.

SATURDAY:
Features the Hit Factory pieces 'Schrodinger's Box' by Aly Greaves and 'Teeth' by Chris Hainsworth (both directed by Ensemble Member Jenny Avery) as well as the personal essays 'The Amazons' by Michaela Petro and 'Wheels of Steel' by Gregor Mortis.

Space is limited, so if you want to see it (and you do), get your tickets now!

If you don't live in Chicago, stay tuned for information on how to enjoy this event live on the internet! And if you can't attend but would like to help us keep doing what we do, please make a donation through Network for Good.

We'll have more updates soon! To make sure you've got all the latest news, add your name to the guest list on Facebook!

Lifeline Theatre's Neverwhere Blew My Mind With Awesomeness!

Go see it.  T'was awesome.  Like sweet sweet summer action movie *with content* awesome.  Fans of the book will not be disappointed. (I practically squealed when I saw the trolls on Richard's desk.)  The entire production is jaw-dropping gorgeous and inventive in a way that makes me sort of angry at how successful they are...and by angry, I mean really REALLY jealous and amazed at the company's amazing talent and supremely sad that I was not involved. It reminded me of why I do theatre and see theatre: because the magical combination of actors, clever design, and wicked fantastic effects deliver such a body thrill and exciting human connection in a way that goofy 3-D glasses and computer animation never will. I want to stalk this production like a 13 year old Bieber-fan.  I want to hand-embroider pillows with "I heart Neverwhere" on them and bake the cast little cakes in the shape of rats. I am expecting this thing to sell like hot cakes.  Get your tickets ASAP. Horror fans will have a lot of fun at this one as well.  There's some very groovy monster effects, some puppet work, excellent fights, and a rat eaten for a tasty snack. The cast features Wildclaw Dreams in the Witchhouse alum & Deathscribe 2009 Winner Chris Hainsworth as well as sound design by The Revenants and Legion's Misha Fiksel. 

Okay..I have gushed enough for now.  Expect more gushing later.

Hard Boiled, Hainsworth & Klein

strange connections.

so last night, Mr. Morlock treated himself to evening alone with a VHS loaned by the worthy Charley Sherman, WildClaw Artistic Director and adaptor of the upcoming ">Legion" - William Peter Blatty's Legion, not the current goofball film "Legion," which blatantly steals that lovely moment of the old lady crawling across the ceiling.

So the film last night - "Hard Boiled." Top shelf pre-Hollywood John Woo. Fantastic, operatic shoot-em up. Obviously not horror, but something about the film was eerie...

As he refilled the paper bag with the last of his precious Easy-Off, Mr. Morlock realized what was bothering him. Chow Yun Fat. Awesome, of course. Super bad-ass, especially when squinting or sneering or pretending to play clarinet.

Then Mr. Morlock visualized him wrestling with giant rubber tentacles and suddenly it came clear: Chow Yun Fat is the Chinese Chris Hainsworth.



Hainsworth never pretended to play the clarinet, but he's been know to pretend to sing. And I doubt Chow Yun Fat could rock the bleached blond rock star 'tude like FOWC, alumnus of "Dreams in the Witch House", winner of the 2009 DEATHSCRIBE Bloody Axe Chris Hainsworth can.



Which of course reminded Mr. Morlock that he plans to see " The Artist Needs a Wife " this weekend. He knows it won't be creepy awesome like "Breed With Me," but it will funny, weird awesome. Featuring people like Hainsworth, directed by FOWC Carolyn Klein, the beautiful, creepy witch in who's house we all Dreamed, Mr. Morlock has no doubts his evening will rock. Hope yours does as well.

Teeth

So Dani sez the other night that she has a toothache. so of course, I felt a twinge in my jaws, gums and choppers.

Scary.



Scary that deep down, Mr. Morlock is actually the sweet empathic type.

But also scary in that when teeth go wrong, they go horribly wrong.



Just ask the winner of the 2009 Bloody Hatchet, Chris Hainsworth, about scary teeth. Go on, ask him.



And dentists are scary.

Deathscribe 2009: The Second Annual International Festival of Radio Horror Plays Final Roster.

After 6 months of reading and writing, after nearly one hundred submissions, WildClaw Theatre is very excited to announce the final five DEATHSCRIBE 2009 Radio Horror Plays.

First, however, we would like to thank EVERYONE who submitted a script to DEATHSCRIBE 2009. We were delightfully overwhelmed with the number and quality of the submissions. In the end, we were upset that we could only present five, as there were so many wonderful scripts to choose from. It was a privilege to read these scripts, every last one of them. To all of those Dark Scribes who did not make the final five, thank you so much for sharing your stories with us, and keep writing. The more Dark stories out there, the better.

In the end, there could be only five scripts in the judged portion of DEATHSCRIBE 2009. After two rounds of blind judging and much discussion, all signs pointed to these five:

Bags of Blood, written by Daniel Caffrey, directed by Don Hall.

The Most Beautiful Woman in the World, written by Clint Sheffer, directed by Cecilie Keenan.

The Dust Gods of Dr. Gaul, written by Jude Mire, directed by Robert Breuler

The Skinny Man, written by Scott T. Barsotti, directed by Katie McLean

Remembrance, written by Chris Hainsworth, directed by Nic Dimond.

Congratulations to all the Death Scribes. We will see you all at DEATHSCRIBE, at the Music Box Theatre on October 5th.