WildClaw Products at Red Bubble

Help support horror theatre and my not-for-profit theatre company, WildClaw Theatre. Check out the tees and greeting cards we have at Red Bubble.

Burning City Website Update

Okay, we've got a whole new design over at the main Burning City website. New bio, new graphics, a timeline of projects from 1983 to today.

Go check it out.

http://burningcity.com.

The Revenants Is Over

Laura Hooper and Brian Amidei in The Revenants

WildClaw would like to thank everyone who came to our latest production, The Revenants, by Scott T. Barsotti, as directed by Anne Adams. And thank you to Rich and everyone at Angel Island Theater for being such great hosts.

6 More Shows Left!

Only 6 more shows left of WildClaw Theatre's The Revenants. We're selling out, so get those tickets online.

Vote for WildClaw Theatre

Hey, you three people who read this blog! If you had fun with WildClaw Theatre this year, drop on by the Chicago Reader poll and vote for us in the Theater section. http://media.chicagoreader.com/Best-of-Chicago/2009/ballot/voting/category/performing-arts

The Revenants Poster

I just completed the graphic for our upcoming zombie play, The Revenants, by Scott T. Barsotti. The show opens April 20th, 2009 at the Angel Island Theater in Chicago. This intimate, dare I say, claustrophobic production will be directed by WildClaw company member, Anne Adams.


Poster by Charlie Athanas

Making of The Dreams in the Witch House Poster

When I started this blog, it's intent was to expose my creative process as I wrote my vampire story/play, The First Fear. (More on that in upcoming posts.)

During the making of the play The Great God Pan earlier this year, I documented that play's poster design process pretty thoroughly. Now that The Dreams in the Witch House is up and running and getting good reviews, I thought I would expose the guts of that poster. (Go see the play!)

The play's director and adaptor, Charley Sherman, wanted the poster to feel dark with blues and grays and the feeling of metal to express the city of Arkham. Arkham is H. P. Lovecraft's infamous city of nightmares where the play takes place. I had done a teaser graphic that was photo manipulating via Photoshop filters, but it was a rush job and not what I wanted ultimately.


The Dreams in the Witch House teaser graphic

So when it came time to produce the final graphic, I pulled several photos I had taken at various places and chose three to work with. I often pull from my random photo files to either place them into designs completely unrelated to the topic or to use as reference for a drawing. I learned from Sparth (one of my favorite concept art artists) at the Massive Black Revelations Symposium this past January in Seattle, that he does this all the time in his concept art designs. He will even take old finished concept art pieces and use them for textures and design elements in newer pieces.

Here are the three photos I choose to work with:


A cool dilapidated iron fence in my neighborhood


A view from inside Northwestern Evanston hospital


A church steeple down the block from my house

I combined the three of them in Photoshop layers and composed and cropped to get this:



I used the Plastic Wrap filter on the two non-steeple photos and adjusted Levels on all of them to get the contrasts I wanted and the textures suitably creepy.

From there I started playing with some type ideas for the title -


In the end, I realized that something needed to be in this landscape and I initially had a hooded, vague shape with a rat's tail sticking out from the cloak to hint at the character, Brown Jenkins. After showing it to the director, we realized that it wasn't strong enough and I went to a clearer rat image. This turned out to be for the best, because rats play a large role in the play and Arkham. After hours of trying to find the right way to fit in Lovecraft's name and his very long story title, this is the final image for the poster:


The Dreams in the Witch House poster graphic


Poster detail

Viking Youth Power Hour Review of Witch House

Those horror fiends at the Viking Youth Power Hour wrote about their experience at The Dreams in the Witch House. Here are some choice excerpts:

"This past weekend I spent one of the more enjoyable Saturday night’s I’ve had in Chicago in some time at our city’s resident 'Horror Theatre' experts newest production, an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s 'The Dreams in the Witch House.'

'Witch House' tells the story of a young mathematics genius with a mysterious past, Walter Gilman, taking to school at the infamous Miskatonic University. Before our fated hero can even unpack his bags he’s beset by terrible omens, rat faced humans, odd foreigners, and troubling dreams encouraging geometry as a means to a rather inhabited fourth dimension. By the end of the show we’ve been treated to spirit possession, incest, baby pies, glowing pentagrams, an awesome chameo from an Old One, plenty of madness and witchery and enough murder to keep that old impotent cunt Dick Cheney horny for a week. In short, it’s a delicious trollop through the highest roads of horror's greatest riffs.

The performances were great as well... But what sets Wildclaw apart from other theatre groups is that they aren’t just pursuing art by way of theatre, they’re pursuing theatre by way of Horror. And this love of the wicked permeates every aspect of the show.

(Y)ou’d be fool to miss the WildClaw Theatre’s production of 'The Dreams in the Witch House'."

For the full review, check it out here.

Arkham Awaits

Big begins building

Today we erected the set for H. P. Lovecraft's The Dreams in the Witch House at the Athenaeum Theater. Tech week has officially started. Platforms have been hoisted, screws tightened, paint flung. We open next Sunday, November 16th and run through December 21st.

Get your tickets now for WildClaw's most ambitious show. Centerstage has already called it a Must-See Show and Fangoria is telling you to obey that impulse and see it.

Here's what they said about WildClaw's The Great God Pan earlier this year:

"If this is the WildClaw standard for horror, we’ll gladly be horrified again"
-TimeOut Chicago

"Fantastically executed"
-Killer_works.com

"It delivers the guts and gore you crave and you may actually get blood splattered on you"
-The Chicagoist

"Spooky fun in the vein of the classic Hammer Films thrillers of the 1950s and '60s"
-Chicago Reader

You probably heard that Deathscribe was a blast. So what are you waiting for? Arkham awaits.

Deathscribe October 6th

On October 6, 2008, WildClaw Theatre will premiere an annual event known as Deathscribe. It is a festival of juried entries for ten minute horror plays to be performed as radio plays with foley in a live theater setting. This year it will be at the Music Box theater.

Fangoria did a nice write-up about it.

Busy, Busy, Busy

It's been a month since my last post. Why, you ask? Well, three things:
• The Devil's Candy Store and the San Diego Comic-Con 2008
• WildClaw Theatre's second season promotion
• The First Fear



There will soon be a new website for The Devil's Candy Store as we venture into the selling of exotic contraband from impossible worlds. We are working with author, LA Banks, and using her Vampire Huntress novel series as our first impossible world. Tony Swatton of Sword and Stone building the vampire killing sword, Madame Isis, and its sister dagger, both to be displayed in San Diego this July. We'll be auctioning off the one of the kind hero sword and you can pre-order the dagger.



Craig Elliott, a Devil's Candy Store artist, is designing some Vampire Huntress based jewelry for the show and will be one the concept artists contributing to our limited edition book featuring characters, Damali Richards and Carlos Rivera of the Vampire Huntress series. Other artists planning to be in the book are:
• Dave Dorman
• Craig Elliott
• Tom Baxa
• Peter Bergting
• Cyril Van Der Haegen
• John VanFleet
• Eric Battle
• Alex Wald
• Ray Frenden
• and me



A new website is in the making for WildClaw Theatre as we gear up for our next set of productions and a couple of benefits. The first benefit will be June 22nd at The Four Moon Tavern. Stay tuned for the Pagan details.



And lastly, I had an excellent story consultation with Charley Sherman on my comic book (and possible play), The First Fear. The story is finally coming together into a solid narrative. Yeah, baby!

WildClaw

The Great God Pan has completed it's run. For a first production of a new theatre company it was an unqualified success. Thank you to everyone who saw the show and to the many, many folks who helped behind the scenes.


Striking the Pan set. Michaela is on the ladder cleaning blood off the walls.

It has been a smooth venture of creativity, problem-solving, passion, and fun. It's been nice to work on a drama without the drama. Hats off to Charley Sherman for creating an atmosphere to work in that invited collaboration and gave people room to breath and grow.

The Final Four - Pan Performances That Is

What do you mean you haven't seen it?!

Okay, it's now or never. There are four more performances of The Great God Pan at the Athenaeum Theatre.

Don't be one of those folks who asks us if we videotaped the show for everyone who missed it.

We didn't.

"This is a major achievement as a piece of horror theatre...engaging and scary"
-ChicagoCritic.com

"fantastically executed"
-Killer_works.com

"It delivers the guts and gore you crave and you may actually get blood splattered on you"
-The Chicagoist

"spooky fun in the vein of the classic Hammer Films thrillers of the 1950s and '60s"
-Chicago Reader

My WildClaw Interview with Clive Barker

Tuesday I had the good fortune of interviewing Clive Barker for the WildClaw Theatre website. Always charming and an effortless interview (you just sort of mention a subject and Clive is off and running), Clive was gracious enough to talk to me during a very hectic schedule. He is a creating machine. You can read the interview here.



Clive helped us out with an interview before when Steve Pickering adapted William Gibson's Burning Chrome. He interviewed William Gibson for our Chrome website and the two of them went on for one and a half hours. It was great.

My thanks again to both authors for supporting the arts at all levels. I was a fanboy before I met them and I'm still a fanboy now.

Killer-works and The Great God Pan

"Fantastically executed... It would be impossible to tell the story literally from Machen's text, but Charley Sherman (adaptor/director) does an excellent job of creating a narrative flow that makes sense. Lighting and sound skillfully move you around the stage, help set the tone and punctuate the moments of tension. The acting is also of high caliber and the female leads Lily Mojekwu (as the many faces of evil) and Michaela Petro (as Mary) are particularly captivating."
-Jude Mire, Killer-works(for full review)


Lily Mojekwu in The Great God Pan


Michaela Petro in The Great God Pan

ChicagoCritic.com

Another review is in for The Great God Pan. This one is from Tom Williams of ChicagoCritic.com.

"Recommended

This is a major achievement as a piece of horror theatre...(a) well acted and eerie work (with terrific lighting by Paul Foster with outstanding mood setting sound design by Adam Kozlowski), delivers Machen’s relatively unknown work quite effectively. This production of The Great God Pan is an outstanding evening of horror/mystery theatre. Chicago needs a “horror theatre” and Wildclaw Theatre sure makes an impressive debut in that realm.

Let me state that The Great God Pan aptly explores the nature of evil and the search for evil’s true identity that unfolds with several unique twists. This major work is engaging and scary. The low budget production delivers several well-time moments that make you jump out of your seat. Tom Hickey, Lily Mojekwu and Peter Corey were terrific. Kudos to Charley Sherman for attempting and succeeding with a complex horror classic. I await more."
- Tom Williams

2 for 1 Student Tickets For Pan -Thu & Sun

2 for 1 tickets for students for Thursday and Sunday performances of The Great God Pan. Now you have no excuse not to see horror theater in Chicago. If you get scared during the show, you'll have someone to hold onto.

The Great God Pan Opens!

If you're in Chicago come see us. We opened our stage adaptation of Machen's The Great God Pan and the show is off and running. We've gotten a couple of reviews so far and both are good:

"If this is the WildClaw standard for horror, we'll gladly be horrified again."
-Kris Vire, TimeOut Chicago

"Our take: next time you're in the mood for a spine-tingler, put down the Netflix and give this play a shot. It delivers the guts and gore you crave, and you may actually get blood splattered on you. Score."
-Ali Trachta, The Chicagoist


Tom Hickey, Steve Hersen, and Michaela Petro

Come see us at the Athenaeum Theatre. It is rip-roaring horror in a blackbox theater Chicago-style. All the info you would want is at our WildClaw Theatre website: http://www.wildclawtheatre.com

Painting and Sculpting

I have been painting and sculpting this week. Acrylics and plaster. I haven't done that since 1978. And then it was mostly oils. Much fun. Big challenge was to produce these images in the manner requested by the director. Not my style, at all. (The paintings, not the taking direction part.)

I would show you more of these pieces, but they are part of The Great God Pan set and I wouldn't want to spoil any surprises (just yet.)

Prada Envokes Via James Jean

Ever wonder what a James Jean illustration would look like if it came to life? Well, wonder no longer. Prada has utilized Jean as a concept artist for this short promotional film by James Lima. And yes, Pan makes an appearance as a fashion god.

PRADA - Trembled Blossoms
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