EVIL DEAD, THE MUSICAL!

Just in time for Halloween…Pittsburgh Musical Theatre (PMT) presents Evil Dead The Musical every weekend at 8:30 p.m. until Oct. 22 at the West End Canopy on 327 South Street. The musical adapts content primarily from the first Evil Dead film, while taking certain aspects from other films in the franchise, and giving it all a highly comedic twist.

In short, the show takes all the elements of the cult classic films The Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness and combines them “into one of the craziest theatrical experiences of all time…five college students go to an abandoned cabin in the woods and accidentally unleash an evil force that turns them all into demons. Blood flies. Limbs are dismembered. Demons tell bad jokes … and all to music,” according to the promotion from the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.

The West End Canopy is an outdoor venue, with only a plastic tent shiel-ding the audience from the wind. As such, it is advised that audience members dress for the weather. There is a bar and three port-a-potties, as well as a merch stand that sells sweaters, so all the basic needs of the audience are met.

The show starts with a man warning the audience that the show contains foul language, sexual comments and blood. The film the show is based on is rated NC-17, and the show does not attempt to make it more child-friendly. As a result, audience members should bring along their children and little siblings at their own risk.

That night, the tent was packed. If you’re seated near the back like I was, you might have to stand to see some of the action going on near the front of the stage.

Sound wise, however, you’ll have no problem hearing the actors’ lines. Nick Mitchell, the director of the production, says that sound is very important to him. He recalls the first time they did the production.

“We were using smoke [machines] and between the orchestra and the microphones and the hazers and the smoke, I had written: ‘I can’t hear. I can’t see.’ And then it just started degenerating like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, and it’s like, ‘I can’t see! I can’t hear! I can’t f***g see! I can’t f***g hear!’”

Thankfully, they were able to get it to work before the show, but Mitchell values the audience being able to see and hear all the action going on. He gives props to sound designer, Brendan McGhee, technical director, Jon Sage, and COVID safety manager, Kevin Kocher.

The set design is low budget, which, rather than taking away from the show, adds an opportunity for comedy. The show balances a line between extreme self-awareness and a gripping level of immersion.

Mitchell says that he saw a production that was relatively high budget, which he didn’t quite like. “[The Evil Dead] was done by Sam Raimi and his friends in the woods on a shoestring budget the first time, so let’s lean into that, and I can show them how the sausage is made. If we’re spending more than $9.99 for an effect, we’re getting ripped off.”

He added that this wasn’t a completely literal statement, as they did not look to spare expenses in ways that would compromise the quality of the show, but that they did “want it to look as easyand slapdash as possible, which actually takes a pretty talented team to have a polished production that looks low budget like that,” Mitchell said.

The songs were both pleasing to the ear and funny at the same time. Many songs that attempt this balance fail miserably, so I must commend the musicians.

Each of the performers could be the lead singer of a hard rock band from the 70s and sell platinum while doing it. It’s hard to choose a favorite, but Joseph Fedore, who plays a minor character named Ed, had a fantastic song in Bit Part Demon.

Due to the close proximity between the audience and the stage, there is a level of intimacy here that is unattainable in a higher budget show that takes place on a grander stage. The audience and the performers feel in sync with one another. Mitchell described the relationship as “symbiotic,” which is a sentiment I agree with. That said, some audience members can take it a little too far.

Mitchell says that occasionally, an issue the production will experience is that an audience member will “feel that connection so much that they’ll look up these actors on their own Facebook and Instagram pages and feel closer to them than they need to, so we encourage our actors to protect themselves,” he said.

Thus, it is advised audiences not get too attached, and remember that though the actors may be great at their jobs, they are not the characters they play.

The show contains a profuse amount of blood, which no warning could have prepared me for. It seems there isn’t an action these characters can take that doesn’t result in a horrifying injury of some kind.

Mitchell says that Makeup and Special Effects Designer, Christopher Patrick, “uses a compound that actually has a detergent base to it with a stabilizer in there. So it’s almost literally soap, but again it’s safe for the eyes, cause (the character) Ash gets plenty right in the face. In addition, it washes out of clothes, so if you’re brave enough to handle it, try to get a seat near the front.

According to Mitchell, only two actors are present in the current production who were present in previous ones. “So this is the third time that we’ve done it, and this time we’ve actually made it a part of PMT’s professional season which allowed us to use more union and equity contracts than we had before.”

Rest assured, however, if you want to be a part of a PMT production, auditions are open to anyone. While they are required to use a certain number of actors from the Actors’ Equity Association, which is a union for theatre actors, those actors can be cast anywhere, opening the floor to anyone with the right skills to take on the role.

“Many of these people are professionals who just haven’t joined a union,” Mitchell said. “A few have 9 to 5 jobs. We have a lawyer in our cast. We have a now-stay-at-home mom who is a former insurance agent in our cast.”

While performances are generally pretty consistent, occasionally, some things change. Mitchell says of Brett Goodnack, who plays main character Ash: “He will give the exact same level of performance every night like a machine. However, if a moment happens that’s different, he’ll absolutely stop and point it out. It’s like watching SNL. No one’s scripted to break, but when they do, the audience just kind of feels in on it a little bit, and we have that freedom to accept moments as they arise, whether expected or unexpected,” he said.

For those who are unfamiliar with musical theatre, horror and the Evil Dead franchise, I’m in the same boat, and this was one of my best experiences. “This is the show to take people to who don’t like musicals and don’t like horror movies,” Mitchell said.

The director cautioned, however, “Now, that said, if you take somebody to this who says they hate musicals and this is their first musical and they love it? Well, they’re pretty much ruined, because they may never find this again. It is this Venn Diagram that overlaps people who like musicals, people who like comedy, people who like horror movies, and we just get this incredibly eclectic audience,” Mitchell said.

Photos courtesy: The Pittsburgh Musical Theater

Story by: Yousuf Ibrahim (yli5000@psu.edu)