It’s Alive! Now, imagine hearing that in a 1950s sci-fi film that is funny because of how dated and corny it is, and you’re pretty close to the play that will be coming to Ypsilanti this Halloween.
“Just before Covid hit, I had just written my first musical called ‘Benesopheles: the Last Days of Ghoulita Graves.’ It took place on the Ghoulita Graves show,” explains Greg Pizzino, who co-wrote the script and will co-star in it. In that previous play, the story was told from behind the scenes of the production of the fictional Ghoulita Graves’ show. This new show will flip that dynamic and present what would’ve been Ghoulita Graves’s finished work. “When we were talking about what we wanted to do for our Halloween show, we said we want to do a B movie parody and we want to have Ghoulita Graves host it as a Ghoulita Graves show, whereas in the previous musical we were seeing behind the scenes.”
This new production takes a Michigander scientist on an adventure of Cold War politics. Back then, the launch of Sputnik drew bipartisan dread as many were convinced of disinformation and misinformation theorizing that the Soviet Union was going to use humanity’s first artificial satellite to attack the West. That obviously never happened, but what if it did? The play is about the monster that the radioactive projectile that these alternate-reality communists fired, and the creature it creates.
The play will be performed at the Back Office Studio at 13 North Washington Street, between Bobcat Bonnie’s and the bus depot. It is a production of the Neighborhood Theater Group.
Aaron Dean, who wrote the music and co-wrote the script with Pizzino, said the public should see this play because “it’s a lot of fun, and hopefully will excite you and maybe disturb you in the best ways possible.”
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The play will be performed on October 18, 19, 20, 24, 25 and 26. The performances on Thursday, Friday and Saturday will begin at 8 p.m. But if that is too late for you, or for your kids, the Sunday show will start at 2 p.m.
General admission is $15 per seat if you order in advance. Students can get in for $12. If you ask for a ticket at the door, that will be $20.
The Neighborhood Theater Group promised online that the monster will come with “some truly terrible poetry.”
Drew Saunders is a freelance business and environmental journalist who grew up just outside of Ann Arbor. He covers local business developments, embraces his foodie side with reviews restaurants, obsesses over Michigan's environmental state, loves movies, and feels spoiled by the music he gets to review for Ann Arbor!
