FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  Halloween, Events, Calendar, Theater, Musicals, Rock Operas, etc

PRESS PHOTOS available at foulplaysf.com and darkroomsf.com/wickerman

Presenting a Foul Play
THE WICKER MAN
A Rock Opera About the Ultimate Sacrifice
Original music score from Jim Fourniadis and LIVE EVIL

WHEN:
OPENING THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2
October 2 to 25, 2008
Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays at 8pm

WHERE:
The Dark Room Theater
2263 Mission Street, between 18th & 19th, SF
darkroomsf.com, 415-401-7987
get map

TICKETS:
$20 at the door; or
ONLY $15 online at brownpapertickets.com/event/40963

INFO:
darkroomsf.com/wickerman
foulplaysf.com
foulplaysf@gmail.com

SAN FRANCISCO, CA —  October 2008, something wicker this way comes!  We're presenting a Foul Play, the Wicker Man:  a Rock Opera About the Ultimate Sacrifice, a musical thriller, and burning sensation just in time for Halloween from the team that brought you Attack of the Killer B-Movies.  

April showers bring the sanctimonious Sergeant Howie a mysterious letter concerning a missing girl from Summerisle, the tiny pagan island commune renowned for its bountiful produce and unabashed holy day rituals.  His investigation of the restless natives proves as fruitless as last year’s crops, though; and the bizarre inhabitants only serve to add fuel to the flames of his righteous indignation.  Driven to save the girl’s immortal soul from this den of idolaters, he discovers the truth behind the girl’s disappearance—that come May Day, the villagers intend to  sacrifice her to their gods of the field to ensure a successful harvest.  Howie must infiltrate their festivities, find the girl and escape—but will his plan put him out of the frying pan and into the fire?    

The Wicker Man runs October 2 – 25, 2008; shows are Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm at the Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission Street, between 18th and 19th, SF.  Tickets are $20 at the door; or only $15 at brownpapertickets.com/event/40963.  More info at foulplaysf.com, 415-401-7987 or at foulplaysf@gmail.com. 
            
The Wicker Man is a Foul Play from Cameron Eng and Sean Owens with an original music score from the Dark Room’s Jim Fourniadis (darkroomsf.com) and LIVE EVIL (Live, Death Bone, The Purge, Porkchop, liveevilrocks.com) and stars:  Dan Foley, Erin Lucas, Flynn De Marco, Jim Jeske, Khamara Pettus, Maura Sipila, Mikl-em, and Steffanos X. 

— END —

Foul Play is the brain child collaborative of Sean Owens and Cameron Eng and has had the pleasure to bring you Attack of the Killer B-Movies (featuring the Birds, the Blob and the Bad Seed) and looks forward to bringing you Stale Magnolias in Spring 2009. 

PRESS CONTACT (not for publication): 
Cameron Eng foulplaysf@gmail.com 

CAMERON ENG
production, direction, graphics, adaptation, publicity
Cameron, a long time Dark Room veteran, burned the midnight oil bringing you such productions as KLUBSTiTUTE KOLLECTiVE’s Faux Queen Pageant: for Drag Queens Trapped in Women’s Bodies (coming 12/07/09) and Impossible Productions’ CLUE, the Princess Bride, Young Frankenstein, Emperor Norton, Duck Soup and many others.  Recently, he teamed up with Sean Owens for Foul Plays (foulplaysf.com) such as Attack of the Killer B-Movies; and to fan the flames, coming May 2009, Stale Magnolias. He would like to especially thank Jim Fourniadis, Erin Ohanneson, Michelle Talgarow, and Terrance Alan who taught him to play, with fire. 

DAN FOLEY
Captain, Harbor Master, Photographer
Dan Foley is an enigma stuffed inside of a riddle and swaddled in mystery.  He had the pleasure of performing in numerous Dark Room theatrical joints.  Dan's core training is in Improv Comedy; he performs with the group Middle School Poetry.  He is also is a big fan of the Sinatra RESTful Ruby Project and the Java 5 Concurrency Utility package.  Follow Dan @ http://twitter.com/sleepbotzz

ERIN LUCAS
May Morrison, Daisy
Erin Lucas, whose Clark Kent day job is a buyer for See Jane Run Sports, actually is the  cape-wearing super-hero Rainbow Brite, fighting for the right to dictate and living her life on an abstract plane. If you see a capricious fairy flitting around town with her 5-year old pixie apprentice doing amazing and death-defying tasks for SF Zero (sf0.org), then you have spotted the elusive heroine.  In that pesky world known as reality she has enjoyed her recent participation in the Lamplighter’s production of The Mikado and has a Bachelor of Music degree (emphasis in Education – sigh) from San Francisco State University. Next fall Ms. Brite hopes to begin a Masters degree in saving the world from monochromaticism…or community mental health.

FLYNN DE MARCO
Sergeant Neil Howie, wigs, wicker man videography
Flynn has been performing in plays since kindergarten when he played the narrator in "The Fat Cat." He subsequently found himself in plays all through the rest of his school years and after a brief hiatus where he claimed to be "Punk Rock," returned to the stage with the Sick and Twisted Players in 1991. He performed in many shows around San Francisco until moving to New Orleans in 2000. There he formed his own theater company, Running With Scissors and performed over 20 shows garnering a Best Actor in a Musical Big Easy Award for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. He also received directing awards for The Bad Seed and Sordid Lives, both which he also starred in. Aside from theater work, Flynn has a deepening interest in the video games industry and runs a successful video game website, GayGamer.net. He also plays the ukulele. Flynn is thrilled to be performing with Foul Play Productions in The Wicker Man. He is a horror movie aficionado and The Wicker man is one of his favortes. He is also very happy to be performing with such a talented and supportive cast especially Jim Jeske, a Running With Scissors founding member, with whom he has performed countless times over the years. He would like to thank his parents for always encouraging him to follow his dreams no matter how little money those dreams actually make.

JIM FOURNIADIS
musical direction, original music score, recording, sound engineering, sound operation
Jim loves musicals and still cries when Judy Garland sings Over the Rainbow. This is Jim's fifth contribution to musical theater here at the Dark Room, and by far his favorite. Jim is pleased to be working with his buddy Cameron again and hopes you have half as much fun watching this as he had composing it. Jim's next projects include this December adapting & directing a live stage version of the first Star Wars film, and in Feb 09 reprising his title role in Emperor Norton: the Musical.

JIM JESKE
Innkeeper
After a couple month’s hiatus, Jim returns to the Dark Room stage to join his favorite folks in a presenting a tale of page skullduggery.  Only on stage does the real Jim emerge.  Ordinary occasion find him steeped in artifice to disguise the seething misanthrope lurking within. 

KHAMARA PETTUS
Willow
Since moving to San Francisco, Khamara has been in Zola-X, Men with Microphones, and The Ten Commandments: a Live Comedy of Biblical Proportions at the Dark Room, Beautiful, Bad Things at the Exit Cafe, a television short called The Mitzy Show, The Road Weeps, The Well Runs Dry at A.C.T., and Much Ado About Nothing with Marin Shakespeare Company.  Khamara is pleased to be working with Cameron and this cast of merry revelers!

LIVE EVIL Live, Death Bone, The Purge, Porkchop
original music score
Live Evil is the heavy metal playground that exists only in the mind of wannabe rocker Laurent Martini, whose love of Motley Crue drove him to pen over 100 song lyrics during his teen-aged years has he tried (albeit in vain) to evoke the rocker lifestyle: loose women, boozing, and life on the road. The only drawback to his dreamed super stardom and tattooed lifestyle has been Martini’s upper-middle class upbringing, elite private French schooling, and living at home in San Francisco’s Marina district until the age of 25. The existence of Live Evil was destined by the Gods of Rock. Two-parts fist-pumping arena rock concert, one-part failed high-school talent show, Live Evil is an endearing cocktail ultimately about a childhood dream that refuses to fade.

MAURA SIPILA
Miss Rose
A singer/actor by trade, Maura Sipila has been a fixture in the Bay Area performing arts scene for most of her life. She recently appeared in Aida, her seventh show with the San Francisco Lyric Opera, and is a charter member of the SFGC's Alumnae Chorus, which will be performing at Davies Hall in December. On occasion, she can be seen and heard co-hosting Bad Movie Night here at The Dark Room. Apart from rehearsing and performing, Maura can also be found cooking sumptuous meals, taking long urban hikes, advocating questionable causes and pet-sitting for crazy cat ladies.

MIKL-EM
Grave Digger, Myrtle Morrison, Doctor
Mikl-em has made his mark on the Dark Room stage (but they made him clean it up).  He has played The Monster, The Joker, The Griffey, The God, and The Rod amongst other roles at the Dark Room over the years. This is Mikl's first multiple-role / quick-change type part. He's happy to take a break from get-there-super-early-so-you-can-put-a-ton-of-makeup-on roles.  This is also, shockingly, the first time he has played a 9-year old girl. He hopes that ingenue parts will follow directly—this is how Jodie Foster got her start after all.  Off-stage, Mikl can be found as a frequent guest-blogger on laughingsquid.com, and somewhat less frequently posting on his own blog:  miklem.com.  He has written several features for Hi Fructose magazine, a delicious pop culture magazine, highlights of which will soon be published in a hardbound edition by Last Gasp.  Mikl is also a regular front-row heckling host at Bad Movie Nights. The quote "Skull Films" is all his fault (it makes more sense if you holler it).  He has performed at innumerable Bay Area venues including The Exit, The Lab, Dadafest (at Somarts), Stagewerx, 21 Grand, and Cafe Du Nord.  He also co-produced the long-running event series the Tentacle Session, which put a spotlight on some of San Francisco's most interesting artists for four years at the turn of the last century. His influences include peace, love, fear, jealousy, a vague disturbance in the force, hunting, gathering and craft (not craft like "the beadazzler" but craft like a yacht. He wants a yacht).  He keeps his feet on the stars, and reaches for the ground—this is just one of several ongoing disagreements with Ed McMahon. As always he thank Danielle for her incredible support, and he thanks Cameron & Sean for putting a great show together and letting him play!

RHIANNON CHARISSE
light operation
Rhiannon likes to do stuff. Sometimes, this stuff manifests itself in purses made out of duct tape, silly fabric being made into even sillier dresses, small toys made out of felt, or even, on occasion, lights going up and down on The Dark Room stage. If you really want to see her doing some stuff, bring her a beer at Bad Movie Night, sit back, watch and enjoy.

SEAN OWENS
production, adaptation, costumes
Sean is the author of more than 30 plays, including Her Majesty and Naught But Pirates, produced especially for NY’s Frigid Festival. Sean was voted “Best Comic Playwright” by the SF Weekly, and is Playwright-In-Residence for the EXIT Theatre in San Francisco. He was most recently seen in Foul Play’s Attack of the Killer B-Movies and is currently developing a solo show called Center Square, based on the life of Paul Lynde.

STEFFANOS X
Lord Summerisle
Steffanos is so happy to be back at the Dark Room where it seem he’s never left, having been in a number of productions here, like Lovesick: the Cat Allergy Musical, Emperor Norton: the Musical, and The Ten Commandments.  Most recently he played DAD in Exit Sign, a rock opera written by Carrie Baum. 

SPECIAL THANKS TO
Terrance Alan
Edward Lee
Michelle Talgarow
Geof Teague
Raging Stallion Studios
Nikita Schoen
Sherilyn Connelly
and Erin Ohanneson.

LIVE EVIL ROCKS!