WILDCLAW IN THE WILD: STORIES BY THE FIRE - PART 1: Dr. Seward's Dracula

Join WildClaw in the great outdoors this summer as we gather by the fire at 3031 to hear three chilling new plays.  Sip on a beer, have a snack, and hear a scary story as the sun goes down and the firepit crackles...what better way to spend a Sunday night?

The series features plays by Joseph Zettelmaier, Brian Watkins, and Sarah Saltwick.  Each selection represents a different flavor of Horror than what WildClaw has done in the past.  We invite you to join us (and bring a minion!) to hear these exciting new plays read aloud by some of Chicago’s finest actors, and then stick around, have another beer, enjoy some haunting melodies and talk to us about Horror Theatre.  Did we mention there’s a fire?  There’s a FIRE.

The WILDCLAW IN THE WILD series will take place on the first Sunday evening of the months of July, August, and September.  (For you calendar-deprived souls and ghouls, that's July 7, August 4, and September 1).

Each reading will begin at 7:30pm at 3031 (3031 N. Honore); doors open at 7:00pm and there will be a special musical guest each month performing before and after the reading.  Suggested donation $5.

July 7
DR. SEWARD’S DRACULA
by Joseph Zettelmaier
directed by Matt Engle
Featuring Amanda Drinkall, John Ferrick, LaQuin Groves, John Henry Roberts, Dave Skvarla, and Greg Wenz
Dr. Seward has cut himself off from the rest of the world after losing his lover and friends to Dracula. He has been contacted by author Bram Stoker, who wishes to tell his story. Soon, a series of murders occur, very similar to the ones Seward fought to stop. The doctor must face demons both real and imagined to find the answers, at the risk of his sanity and his life.
Musical guest Mallory Nees!

JOSEPH ZETTELMAIER is a Michigan-based playwright whose radio play Fish Story won WildClaw's 2012 Deathscribe Bloody Axe Award.  He is a four-time nominee for the Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association Award for best new play, first in 2006 for All Childish Things, then in 2007 for Language Lessons, in 2010 for It Came From Mars and in 2012 for Dead Man’s Shoes. Other plays include Ebenezer, And The Creek Don’t Rise, The All Childish Things Trilogy, Christmas Carol’d, Dr. Seward’s Dracula, Snow Angels, Blackwater Ballad, Night Blooming, Point of Origin, and The Stillness Between Breaths. The Stillness Between Breaths and It Came From Mars were selected to appear in the National New Play Network’s Festival of New Plays. It Came From Mars was a recipient of 2009’s Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award. Dead Man’s Shoes received the same award in 2011. In the 2013-14 season, he will see All Childish Things performed at the Aurora Theatre in Georgia, Salvage at First Folio Theatre in Illinois, The Scullery Maid at the Jewish Ensemble Theatre and The Renaissance Man at the Performance Network (both in Michigan).  Joseph is an Associate Artist at Performance Network, an Artistic Ambassador to the National New Play Network and an adjunct lecturer at Eastern Michigan University, where he teaches Dramatic Composition. He was profiled in the March 2012 issue of American Theatre Magazine.

FISH STORY WINS DEATHSCRIBE 2012!

All of us here at WildClaw wish to extend our most sincere congratulations to Joseph Zettelmaier, whose radio play FISH STORY took home the coveted Deathscribe Bloody Axe last night!

Three desperate men and a prehistoric, many legged fish with necrosis-inducing bites made for a kickass piece of radio horror.  Many thanks to the director Kevin Theis, and the cast of Joe Bianco, Chris Rickett, and Dave Skvarla.

We will have photos from the evening soon, courtesy of Joe Mazza at Brave Lux, which if you haven't seen Joe's work, go check him out.  If you've seen photos from our Clockwork Nightmare benefit back in September then you know how awesome he is.

Coming soon we will have podcasts of DEATHSCRIBE 2011, and we'll be working on getting last night's recordings on the blog as soon as possible.

Thank you to all of this year's directors, actors, musicians, foleyists, and artists.  Thank you to our sponsors, our friends, and you, the show-going horror-loving public for sharing your evening and your enthusiasm with us!

And as always, thank you to the Deathscribes.  DEATHSCRIBE could not exist without all of the delectably demented writers who bravely venture into the dark, carving out their stories in text and sound, grappling with their nightmares so that we too, can enjoy the thrill of a well told scary story.  Last night, we got five of them.

Submissions for DEATHSCRIBE 2013 will open up in the spring of 2013.  Be you playwright, horror writer, novelist, professional, hobbyist, student, teacher, doctor, engineer, taxidermist, nice nurse, creepy nurse, evil barber, firefighter, firestarter, or outer god.  We don't care who you are or where you live.  If you've got a horror radio play you've been wanting to write, get to it.  What are you waiting for?  2013 may be your year, just as 2012 was the Year of the Fish.

Congrats, Joe!

MEET THE DEATHSCRIBE 2012 FINALISTS (part 2 of 5)

Fish are scary.

We can just agree on that.  Everything that lives underwater is terrifying.

Here in Chicago, we just know something, someday, many-tentacled, many-eyed, and flesh-hungry is going to crawl out of that big ol' lake.  Someday.

Our next 2012 Deathscribe is an award-winning dramatist who hails from the wind-chapped apocalyptic wasteland once known as "Michigan."  (Or as WildClaw founding artistic director called it, "Mitch-igan.")  Joseph has treated us to a dark tale of greed, deception, and the wickedness of nature itself.  Three men find themselves alone in a snowstorm, with only each other for company (or competition), and what may be an unknown species in the bathtub.  You're heard about the one that got away, and about the catch that was this big!, but this here ain't no ordinary FISH STORY.  This delicious creature feature is directed by Kevin Theis.

FISH STORY
Written by Joseph Zettelmaier

Directed by Kevin Theis

Joseph Zettelmaier is a Michigan-based playwright and three-time nominee for the Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association Award for best new play, first in 2006 for All Childish Things, then in 2007 for Language Lessons and in 2010 for It Came From Mars. Other plays include Dead Man’s Shoes, And The Creek Don’t Rise, The All Childish Things Trilogy, Dr. Seward’s Dracula, First Snow, Blackwater Ballad, Night Blooming, Point of Origin, and The Stillness Between Breaths. The Stillness Between Breaths won Best New Play 2005 from the Oakland Press and was selected (as was It Came From Mars) to appear in the National New Play Network’s Festival of New Plays. He also co-authored Flyover, USA: Voices From Men of the Midwest at the Williamston Theatre (Winner of the 2009 Thespie Award for Best New Script). It Came From Mars was a recipient of 2009’s Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award, and won Best New Script 2010 from the Lansing State Journal. Dead Man’s Shoes won the Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award in 2011, and won both a Lansing Pulsar Award and Wilde Award for Best New Script. His newest script, Ebenezer, will be performed this winter at Williamston Theatre. He is an Associate Artist at Performance Network, and an adjunct lecturer at Eastern Michigan University, where he teaches Dramatic Composition. Joseph was recently profiled in the March 2012 issue of American Theatre Magazine, and can be reached at www.jzettelmaier.com.

COME HEAR 'FISH STORY' PERFORMED LIVE AT DEATHSCRIBE 2012

MONDAY DECEMBER 3RD AT THE MAYNE STAGE!