The Thrillpeddlers and The HOWL! Festival present
VICE PALACE: The Last Cockettes Musical
A Concert Version of the 1972 Musical Revue Extravaganza
Two nights only! October 21 & 22 2011 – 11pm
at Theater 80, 80 St. Marks Place – New York 212-388-0388
Tickets $15 at the box office or at howlfestival.com

AND

Dr. Queen’s Drag Academy Presents
THE MARTIN WORMAN PAPERS
A Panel Presentation with Select Performances
from The Cockettes Repertoire
With Original VICE PALACE Cast Member Mink Stole
October 17 2011 – 6pm
Bruno Walter Auditorium –
New York Library For The Performing Arts
111 Amsterdam Avenue @ 65th Street, New York

Straight from San Francisco, The Thrillpeddlers present a concert version of their smash hit revival, VICE PALACE: The Last Cockettes Musical on Friday & Saturday, October 21 & 22 as part of the 2011 HOWL! Festival, at Theater 80. Selections from the show can be seen earlier in the week at the New York Library for the Performing Arts on Monday, October 17, as part of The Martin Worman Papers – which takes an in-depth look into the life and career Mr. Worman – actor, playwright, lyricist, director, female impersonator, activist and academic.

Loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”, VICE PALACE was written by Martin Worman & Scrumbly Koldewyn in 1972 as a vehicle for Divine and actress Mink Stole (best known as stars of cult-director John Waters’ films), and The Cockettes. VICE PALACE follows Divina, (Leigh Crow), an eccentric and wealthy woman who spares no expense to keep her jet-set party guests entertained, while the villagers just beyond the walls of her lavish estate are ravaged by the plague. Each performance must top the next in this bizarre race to escape the one uninvited party guest – death!

Originally produced as a “Nocturnal Dream Show” and performed at midnight at the old Palace Theatre in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco on Halloween weekend of 1972, VICE PALACE was the fabled and fabulous Cockettes’ final stage presentation.

The HOWL! Festival is a month-long performance series which will take place throughout the month of October (2011) to benefit the HOWL Emergency Life Project (H.E.L.P).  Administered by the Actors Fund, H.E.L.P is an emergency services and health fund available to East Village and downtown artists in need of assistance. HOWL! Arts Project is sponsored by Actors Fund (administrators of H.E.L.P) and presents poetry, theater, film, dance, music and performance art programs.
 
HOWL! Arts channels the spirit and artistic invention of the namesake poem and poet Allen Ginsberg to deliver firsthand examples of the creative, cultural, and historical forces that have made the highly original downtown arts of the EV/LES community world-renowned

Our 12th Annual Extravaganza of Terror and Titillation

A collaboration between the city’s renowned Thrillpeddlers and “Czar of Noir” Eddie Muller, author of the evening’s three plays.

Sept. 23 – Nov. 19, 2011 (Thurs., Fri. & Sat. at 8:00 pm)

At The Hypnodrome
575 10th Street (Bryant and Division)
San Francisco

$25 – Previews and Thursdays
$30 – Fridays and Saturdays
$35 – Shock Box and Turkish Lounge seating

Buy Tickets Online
or call 415-377-4202

The blood-thirsty spectacle of the Grand Guignol seeps into the shadowy cinematic world of film noir in Shocktoberfest 12: FEAR OVER FRISCO, a collaboration between the city’s renowned Thrillpeddlers and “Czar of Noir” Eddie Muller, author of the evening’s three plays. Each tale leads the audience through a different period of terror and titillation in San Francisco’s noir-stained history: the contemporary déjà vu dread of The Grand Inquisitor, the post-WWII hysterics of An Obvious Explanation, and the Prohibition era high- and low-life of The Drug. In addition, Shocktoberfest!! 12: FEAR OVER FRISCO features musical director Scrumbly Koldewyn’s merrily macabre musical production numbers. The bill culminates with Thrillpeddlers’ famed black-out spook show finale when ghostly apparitions materialize before the audience’s startled eyes. The Hypnodrome’s “Shock Box” seats provide pairs of patrons with privacy and an added jolt of “lights-out thrills”.

In THE GRAND INQUISITOR, (dir. Eddie Muller) an odd young woman with a cache of used books comes calling on an elderly recluse that she believes is the widow of San Francisco’s most notorious serial killer. Twenty real-time minutes culminate in an unexpected and shocking climax. Cast: Bonni Suval (Lulu), Mary Gibboney (Hazel).

In AN OBVIOUS EXPLANATION (dir. Eddie Muller), a daring heist goes awry when the crook who stashed the loot suffers amnesia. An ambitious doctor intends to solve the problem with her untested “memory” serum. The results are more dramatic than she expected – which is not a good thing. Cast: Daniel Bakken (Lucky), Flynn De Marco (Frank), Bonni Suval ?(Dr. Lorisson), Zelda Koznofski (Sherry).

In THE DRUG (dir. Russell Blackwood), a promising young deputy DA’s efforts to crack the case of a celebrated artist’s disfigurement are thwarted – by the prosecutor’s own desire for the prime suspect. René Berton’s classic two-act Grand Guignol, originally set in Saigon, is transposed and adapted by Muller to 1929 San Francisco. Cast: Eric Tyson Wertz (Brendan McDonagh), Flynn De Marco (Charles Marzac), Kara Emry (Claudine Van Ness), Daniel Bakken (Jefferson Van Ness), Joshua Devore (Bernard Devereux), Russell Blackwood (The Doctor), Jim Jeske (The Captain), Steven Bollinger (The Editor), Ste Fishell (Robert), Birdie-Bob Watt (Luang-Si).

On “Vice Palace:”

Vice Palace” was written because, although the Cockettes had officially disbanded, it was getting close to Halloween. The producer of the Nocturnal Dream midnight shows at the Palace needed a Halloween show, and Divine was in town and Mink Stole. A lot of the Cockettes were still around. Martin, who’d written “Hot Greeks,” was asked to do the script, and I was asked to write the music.

For the revival, I’ve had to expand the script and add about seven songs. It’s a revue, but the glue that holds it together is Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death,” but as seen through Fellini, sort of “La Dolce Vita” or “Juliet of the Spirits.” So it takes place in Italy at the Villa Divina – Divine was the original Divina. Now we have Leigh Crow. Who else could live up to Divine’s image?

So the prince invites all his friends to the villa and seals them all off from the plague that’s raging outside and gives them entertainment – entertainment after entertainment. That’s what makes it a revue. But the thing is, each entertainment has to be progressively more outrageous.

Read the full interview at SFGate.com.

April 22 – July 31, 2011
Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 PM
Sundays at 7:00 PM

At the Hypnodrome – 575 10th St., in SF 94103. (Bryant & Division Sts.)

Tickets available online at BrownPaperTickets.com
or by phone at 800-838-3006

$30 General Admission
$35 Shock Box and Turkish Lounge

Thrillpeddlers are happy to announce that after their record-breaking 22 month run of the award-winning production of PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI, they are presenting composer Scrumbly Koldewyn’s revival of the 1972 Musical revue extravaganza “VICE PALACE: The Last Cockettes Musical” at the Hypnodrome Theatre from April 22 thru July 31, 2011 in SF. With a book by Martin Worman and music composed by Scrumbly Koldewyn, the show was originally performed by The Cockettes during Halloween 1972 at the Palace Theatre in North Beach. This revival has been extensively revised by composer Scrumbly Koldewyn with additional material that originally appeared in past Cockettes productions.

“VICE PALACE: The Last Cockettes Musical” is loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe’s hallucinatory short story, “The Masque of the Red Death,” and the even more hallucinatory 1964 Roger Corman film of that name starring Vincent Price. It also gives a stylistic nod to the early 1960s films of Frederico Fellini, specifically “La Dolce Vita” and “Juliet of the Spirits”. VICE PALACE was originally written as a vehicle for Divine and actress Mink Stole (best known as stars of cult-director John Waters’ films), and The Cockettes.

Originally produced as a “Nocturnal Dream Show” and performed at midnight at the old Palace Theatre in Chinatown on Halloween weekend of 1972, VICE PALACE was the fabled and fabulous Cockettes’ final stage presentation. The Thrillpeddlers revision features selections from other Cockettes shows including “Les Etoiles du Minuit,” “Journey to the Center of Uranus,” and “The Circus of Life.”

“VICE PALACE: The Last Cockettes Musical” is directed by Russell Blackwood, and original Cockette and composer Scrumbly Koldewyn is the Musical Director. Costumes by Kära Emry, lights by Nicholas Torre, sound by Chris Paulina, and make up coordinator Kegel Kater.

Composer Scrumbly Koldewyn plays piano for all performances of “VICE PALACE: The Last Cockettes Musical.” Thrillpeddler and San Francisco favorites will be featured in this new production, including: Leigh Crow (Divina), Flynn DeMarco (Goldoni), Birdie-Bob Watt (Vagina Dentata), Steven Satyricon (Niccolini), Eric Tyson Wertz (Bella), Ste Fishell (Tonio), L. Ron Hubby (Madame X), T.J. Buswell (Paulo), James Toczyl (Polo), Russell Blackwood (Lucretia), and making his Thrillpeddlers debut as Ricciolini is Joshua Devore. ?Best known as former porn star Tober Brandt, Mr. Devore (aka Brandt) was named Best Fetish Performer at the 2009 GayVN Awards.

Directed by Russell Blackwood
Musical Direction by Richard “Scrumbly” Koldewyn

Held Over: Through December 19, 2010!
* Saturdays at 8:00 PM October.
* Saturdays at 8:00 PM and Sundays at 7:00 PM in November.
* Fridays & Saturdays at 8:00 PM, and Sundays at 7:00 in December.
* No performances Thanksgiving weekend.

At the Hypnodrome, 575 10th Street, San Francisco

$30 General Admission
$69 “Shock Box” Seat for 2
Buy Tickets Online

Press/Media Info

Thrillpeddlers is proud to announce that due to popular demand and weekly sold-out houses “Pearls Over Shanghai,” San Francisco’s longest-running Cockettes Musical has been extended once again – now through December 19, 2010

“Pearls Over Shanghai,” an original musical by Link Martin and Richard “Scrumbly” Koldewyn, is the centerpiece of our second annual Theatre of the Ridiculous Revival, and marks the 40th anniversary of the formation of The Cockettes, a gender-bending theatrical troupe who not only originated this show, but also exerted a profound influence on the culture of our times, from the phenomenon of midnight movies to glitter rock stars and their outrageous fashions.

Based loosely on John Colton’s scandalous 1926 Broadway play “The Shanghai Gesture” (later transformed into a deliriously decadent art deco film noir by Josef von Sternberg in 1941), “Pearls Over Shanghai” is a comic mock-operetta about white slavery and miscegenation set in the colorful world of 1937 Shanghai, China. Link Martin parts the bamboo curtain, his politics swept aside by his love of the mystery and intrigue of the Orient. Placing his story at the crossroads of good and evil, his exotic “old sin town” is filled with singing sailors, witty whores, foolish immortals, handmaidens and henchmen, all taking their places in streets teeming with a mix of foreign aristocrats, opium addicts, and gangland slave-trade czars

Originally produced as a Nocturnal Dream Show and performed at midnight at the old Palace Theatre in Chinatown, “Pearls Over Shanghai” was the fabled and fabulous Cockettes’ first and best original showpiece. This musical became the crown jewel of The Cockettes repertoire, enjoying three revivals in two years, including a notorious and infamous run at New York’s Anderson Theatre in 1971.

Although “Pearls Over Shanghai” had long been germinating in the fertile mind of Link Martin, it struck the trend-setting, gender-bending theatrical troupe as extremely fortuitous when the real Peking Opera played the same stage at the Palace Theatre. At the time, much was made over a missing trunk of sequined kimonos and props that seemed to vanish. However, the items were not lost and did reappear, some months later, spawning “Pearls Over Shanghai” Two, Three, and Four. For the Thrillpeddlers production, original Cockettes Tahara and Billy Bowers will lend their considerable talents to our resident costume mistress Kara Emry in order to create original designs reminiscent of the opulent 1930s Orient as well as the psychedelic splendor of 1960s San Francisco.

Stage Director for “Pearls Over Shanghai” is Russell Blackwood, and original Cockette and composer Richard “Scrumbly” Koldewyn will serve as Musical Director. The cast will include original Cockette Rumi Missabu reprising his role as the evil Madame Gin Sling. Connie Champagne, Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, and Leanne Borghesi will alternate in the role of Petrushka, first created by disco diva Sylvester in the original productions. With a supporting cast of twenty, costumes a-plenty, and a score of some two dozen songs, this production promises to be the most eye-popping and toe-tapping in the Hypnodrome’s history, with the scent of intoxicating perfume, poisonous flowers, opium, and sex oozing from every scene.

Pairs of patrons will surely enjoy Hypnodrome’s Shock Box seats for two, which garnered SF Weekly’s “Best of San Francisco 2008” for “Best Bonus Theater Experience.” These themed seats include sumptuous Turkish Lounges, as well as private boxes including “Heaven” and “Hell,” “Pharaoh’s Tomb,” and “Padded Cell,” which offer the opportunity for a heightened psychedelic experience during the “opium” blackout sequence at the climax of “Pearls Over Shanghai”—with added special effects as a nod to the 1950s horror movie gimmicks of William Castle.

The program will feature 3 One-Act plays, including the title piece KISS OF BLOOD by Jean Aragny and Francis Neilson, a 1929 shocker from the repertoire of Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol the original French horror theatre, in a new English adaptation by Daniel Zilber (co-founder of Thrillpeddlers), and LIPS OF THE DAMNED and THE EMPRESS OF COLMA, two original plays in the Grand Guignol tradition commissioned by Thrillpeddlers from New York playwright Rob Keefe. The bill culminates with Thrillpeddlers’ famed black-out spook show finale when ghostly apparitions materialize before the audience’s startled eyes. The Hypnodrome’s “Shock Box” seats provide pairs of patrons with privacy and an added jolt of “lights-out thrills.”

KISS OF BLOOD (Le Baiser de sang) caused a sensation when it debuted at infamous Parisian horror theatre, Le Theatre du Grand Guignol in 1929 due to the gruesomeness of its opening scene, set as it is in an operating theatre during the aftermath of a botched brain surgery. At a theatre that had acquired an international reputation for onstage violence, shocking its audience must have been no mean feat – but by confronting the audience with a gruesome tableau the moment the curtain rises, they achieved their goal. The science of brain surgery was still in its infancy, and inexact, to say the least. As the play unfolds, the theme of madness as a surgically operable malady is explored with even more startling developments.

LIPS OF THE DAMNED, suggested by “La Veuve” (a French slang term for The Guillotine, literally “The Widow”), is set in a French museum of torture devices and other antique curiosities, forced to close its doors due to an uncontrollable infestation of starved rats. An illicit amorous tryst is interrupted, or perhaps enhanced, by the intrusion of unwelcome parties.

THE EMPRESS OF COLMA takes place in the basement clubhouse of potential pageant candidates all vying desperately for the title of “Empress of Colma”. Their dental assistant girlfriend, tolerated only for her easy access to pharmaceutical drugs, scores the wrong drugs one fateful day, with hilarious, …albeit disastrous, results.

At intermission, Thrillpeddlers invite audience members to partake in a macabre demonstration of their full-size replica of an 18th century Guillotine. Steady nerves and cameras are a must.

Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome Theatre is located at 575 10th Street, San Francisco. (Bryant & Division Sts.) Tickets for SHOCKTOBERFEST!! 2010 are $25 general admission or $35 premium admission for “Shock Boxes” and “Turkish Lounges” (premium tickets sold in pairs only), and are available at Brown Paper Tickets or by calling 800-838-3006.

It’s been a different kind of thrill down at the Hypnodrome as Thrillpeddlers enters the 11th month of extensions for its runaway smash hit, The Cockettes’ musical Pearls Over Shanghai. One hundred performances strong (as of May 1) and with no end in sight, Thrillpeddlers has slyly redefined its brand of thrills to embrace a wholly different genre besides the Grand Guignol revivalism for which it is best known; setting aside its usual quotient of twisted naturalism and splattered gore for the rambunctious, over-the-top glitter and glam of Theatre of the Ridiculous.

But the two art forms are not entirely unrelated. After all, a staple of Grand Guignol was the steamy sex farce, a fitting description for the ecstatic nudity, cross-dressing, masturbation, and defloration running wild throughout Pearls. And just as the endangered-species quality of Grand Guignol first prompted Thrillpeddlers artistic director Russell Blackwood to begin mounting performances of it in 1991, so too did the precarious posterity of Theatre of the Ridiculous spark a similar interest.

“I didn’t want it to become a footnote in theatre history, or just something you read about,” Blackwood explains. “It turned me on — the fact that it was as marginalized and as conceivably to be forgotten in the way I was concerned Grand Guignol might be.” In 2008, Thrillpeddlers took the slapstick scripts of Theodora, She-Bitch of Byzantium by Charles Busch and Charles Ludlum’s Jack and the Beanstalk and mounted its first “Theatre of the Ridiculous” festival, eventually taking the whole show on the road — along with an hour-long rendition of Pearls Over Shanghai — to the HOWL festival in New York City’s East Village.

“It went really, really great,” Blackwood said. “We had two full separate bills that played in repertory with each other. And afterward, seeing a videotape of that made me realize just what to do with Pearls.”

Of course it wasn’t just Blackwood’s vision that made the Pearls revival possible; it was also the ongoing collaboration with musical director and original Cockette Scrumbly Koldewyn, who painstakingly brought together songs and scripting from multiple versions of the show despite having scarce archived material — save memories and a few recordings — to work from. Koldewyn also has been an instrumental force behind the upcoming revival of Hot Greeks, the only other “book” musical from the original Cockettes repertoire, (opening at the Hypnodrome May 2). He also accompanies the shows nightly on the piano.

One particularly interesting aspect about Pearls is the way it has brought together multiple generations worth of queer performance fixtures: the original founder of Theatre Rhinoceros, Lanny Baugniet, who performs an opium freakout clad in skintight silver lamé; Jef Valentine, whose Madame Gin Sling drips with Frank N. Furter juice and alternates with original Cockette Rumi Missabau; the eternally robust Steven Satyricon as a rosy-cheeked Naval Captain with a mysterious past; and the role of Russian VIP escort Petrushka, serially portrayed by no fewer than four drag Grand Dames.

But by no means is Theatre of the Ridiculous meant to be viewed solely through a queer lens. Blackwood estimates that slightly less 50 percent of the cast is queer-identified. And the myriad Thrillpeddlers core company members, who started off as ghoulish Grand Guignolians, mesh well with their gaily glittering counterparts.

“What struck me (about Theatre of the Ridiculous) was that it’s a decidedly queer art form, yet always seems to have involved men and women, gays and straights,” Blackwood said. “It’s also a wholly American movement, which you can almost look at as a triangle that goes from New York’s Playhouse of the Ridiculous, to John Waters in Baltimore, and the Cockettes out here.” From French horror-show to all-American glam, Thrillpeddlers has seamlessly expanded its niche: resurrection.

Original article at http://www.sfbg.com/2010/04/27/thrill-divine

Directed by Russell Blackwood
Musical Direction by Richard “Scrumbly” Koldewyn

May 2 – June 27, 2010!
Thursdays at 8:00 PM and Sundays at 7:00 PM

At the Hypnodrome, 575 10th Street, San Francisco [Map]

$30 General Admission
$69 “Shock Box” Seat for 2

Buy Tickets Online

Thrillpeddlers is proud to announce production of a revival of the 1972 Cockettes musical extravaganza HOT GREEKS, an original musical by Martin Worman and Richard “Scrumbly” Koldewyn. This show is part of our 3rd annual Theatre of the Ridiculous Revival, which will play in repertory with performances of the long-running hit musical PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI. Originally produced as a Nocturnal Dream Show and performed at midnight at the Palace Theatre in Chinatown in SF, HOT GREEKS was the fabled & fabulous Cockettes’ only other scripted book musical besides PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI. HOT GREEKS is directed by Russell Blackwood, and original Cockette and composer Richard “Scrumbly” Koldewyn serves as Musical Director. The cast includes SF favorite Connie Champagne, and Thrillpeddlers stalwarts Birdie-Bob Watt, and the ever luminescent Michael Soldier as Lysistrata.

HOT GREEKS plays as a limited engagement – running only 17 performances – Thurs. (8 pm) and Sun. at (7 pm) from May 2–June 27, 2010. Opening Night (press night)– Sun., May 2 at 7 pm. The program will be presented in repertory with Thrillpeddlers’ current production PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI, the Cockettes musical, which will continue to run thru August 1, 2010. Fri. and Sat. – thru June 26, 2010 at 8 pm, in July thru Aug. 1, 2010 Pearls plays Sat. at 8 pm and Sun at 7 pm.

Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome Theatre is located at 575 10th Street, San Francisco. (Bryant & Division Sts.) Tickets are $30 gen. admission or $69 for “Shock Boxes” and “Turkish Lounges**”
(admits two) and are available at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/104118
or by calling 800/ 838- 3006.

Synopsis:

In “Hot Greeks,” college rhythm meets the Peloponnesian War as Athens University takes on
Sparta State for their annual pigskin showdown. This musical, loosely based on Aristophanes’s LYSISTRATA, features the Tri Thigh Sorority girls jiving to the big-band hit parade sounds of the 1940s. The kids sing and dance through the ruins, on their way to consult the Oracle of Delphi (The Hot Twat of Tangier) in their pursuit of victory on the gridiron where quarterback Pendulum Pulaski, the Scarlet Helmet Boy, saves the day for the Gods and Greece.

In addition, Thrillpeddlers revival of HOT GREEKS will be paired with a floorshow of musical selections from other seminal Cockettes shows including: TINSEL TARTS IN A HOT COMA, JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF URANUS (JCU), and VICE PALACE (VP). Divine and Mink Stole who are best known for their work in John Waters’ films were featured in these shows and debuted such chestnuts as “A Crab On Your Anus Means Your Loved” (Divine – JCU), and “No Nose Nanook” (Mink – VP). The Floorshow will occur nightly after a brief intermission after the performance of HOT GREEKS.

Four 2-week sessions: June 14, July 5, July 19, and August 2. Ages 8 – 15.

Download Registration Form to sign up!

A Musical Seance returns to The Hypnodrome!

TWO NIGHTS ONLY:
March 7 & 8, 2010 at 8:00 PM

At The Hypnodrome
575 10th St., San Francisco
Map

Buy Tickets Online

Hailed by LA Weekly as “the cult darling of the underworld,” our favorite chanteuse fatale Jill Tracy returns to Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome to resurrect her wildly popular “Musical Seance”, a collaboration with Atlanta cult composer/violinist Paul Mercer, and featuring master percussionist Randy Odell, and special guests.

PLEASE NOTE: Audience members are asked to bring small objects of special significance, such as a photo, talisman, jewelry, toy, token. This is a very crucial part of manifesting the music.

Since joining forces on Halloween 2007, Jill Tracy and Paul Mercer have become widely known for their astonishing duets on piano and violin, mostly improvised or channeled. The pair affectionately refer to their duets as “spontaneous musical combustion.” Their uncanny ability to conjure spirits through unsettlingly lavish compositions has led to spellbinding results, eerily transporting the room and its rapt audience.

Following the pair’s Music Seance last year in Victoria B.C, a man approached violinist Paul Mercer: “While you were playing, I could see a figure looming behind you, a man, he was soaking wet.” He had no idea that the antique violin Mercer was playing that evening belonged to a murder victim who was drowned in a river.

The duo were commissioned to compose the popular Midnight Waltz at the 2008 International Ball of the Vampires (Portland, OR), a dramatic and ambitious work entitled “Coronation of the Witch Queen.” The waltz was later featured when Jill Tracy and Paul Mercer were the headlining performers at Anne Rice’s legendary Halloween Ball in New Orleans.

Tracy and Mercer will be directly returning from concerts in Spain and Portugal (February 2010) to perform A Musical Seance at the Hypnodrome.

Legendary author Clive Barker states: “Jill Tracy creates an elegant netherworld both seductive and terrifying.”

V. Vale of RE/Search publications described a Jill Tracy/Paul Mercer Seance as “Sheer magic! Perfection. Improvised… If you’re lucky enough to be there, you realize you’ve just had a hint of something extra-mortal, uber-human, transcendent – maybe the concentrated ghosts of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater or the Commedia Dell’arte of the past are swirling around the room . . . and you think that THIS is the new avant-garde: live, un-censored, living theater.”

A recent interview in Tor.com describes the Jill Tracy/Paul Mercer Seance as “musical psychometry.”

“These compositions are delicate and glorious living things they materialize, they transport, and in the same second they vanish,” explains Jill Tracy of the Musical Seance. “They embody the fragile essence of Time. No two shows are ever alike, we have no control, that is the rare beauty of it.”

“A Musical Seance” brings it one step further– harnessing the energy of the audience, a synergistic summoning of what dwells within each of us.

Mercer, whose collection of ages-old violins each tells its own story, was the impetus for his highly regarded “Ghosts” CD and lecture series. His personal instrument collection features very unique voices, spirits with such strong personalities they have their own names. His current instruments include a mysterious late 19th century violin named Daphne, a luminous late 17th century violin named Abigail, and a stunning 1820 Viola named Henryetta. Paul has had the fortune to play some powerful instruments such as 1842 Nicolas Vuillaume, two Stradivari, including the magnificent Firebird Stradivari 1718 ex Saint Exupery.

Buy Tickets Online