The Thing From The Place - 7 - 12 Oct Concert Chamber Ak

An hilarifying, terrifying, School Holiday Treat

Time Out Theatre in association with Theatre Beating presents

The Thing From The Place

Monday 7 – Saturday 12 October at the Concert Chamber, Auckland Town Hall

Nobody knew what it was or where it came from - but the towns’ folk knew something was going on at the old homestead… it was The Thing From The Place. Lurking in a laboratory where test tubes bubble mysteriously, organs play creepily and giant snot monsters make mischief amongst the shadows.

Theatre Beating gleefully unearths the gems of B-grade celluloid to bring to the stage a post-modern-monster-mash-up to hilarify children of all ages with the premiere season of The Thing From The Place which opens today and runs until Saturday.

Inspired by Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, and blending them with the genius stylings of silent film greats Keaton and Chaplin, The Thing From The Place is an homage to the golden age of gloriously shabby and endearingly kitsch horror and sci-fi cinema.

Concocted specifically for kids aged 6 – 12 from The Thing From The Place will teleport you back to a time of B-grade high-camp when scientists laughed maniacally, vampires chewed scenery and aliens in tin-foil tried to drink our brains.

In creating and premiering The Thing From The Place, Theatre Beating, New Zealand's most creative physical comedy company, confirm their reputation for intelligent, inspired and explosive comedy following the success of the critically acclaimed anarcho-mime-puppet-slapstick-family-cooking-show The Magic Chicken.

“We make children's comedy that we love; it’s playful but not patronising which makes it fun for adults and children. Children love the mischievousness, adults are delighted by the subversive nature of our comedy. And it’s silly. What more can we say”

Re-uniting The Magic Chicken’s comedy exponents Trygve Wakenshaw and Barnie Duncan under the direction of Geoff Pinfield, the two are let loose in an expressionist world of wibbling mummies and wobbling scenery created by award-winning designers Celery Productions and lit through the gloom by acclaimed lighting designer Nik Janiurek. Throw in Billy T Award-winning Johnny Brugh (the eponymous Chicken in Magic Chicken) some live Foley and melodramatic Theremin music of organist Jeff Henderson and you have a live B-grade horror to laugh at and scare yourself simultaneously.

Exploring and celebrating the instantly recognisable tropes of classic horror style they subvert the clichéd bubbling laboratories, haunted castles and cobwebby crypts to create a ghoulish new family-oriented horror-comedy physical theatre show.

A screamingly silly mash-up of movie monsters and mad scientists, The Thing from the place will hilarify the kid in all of us.

The world premiere season of The Thing From The Place runs from Monday 7 – Saturday 12 October, 11am and 1.30pm at the Concert Chamber, Auckland Town Hall. Tickets are $17 and available from the Aotea Centre Box Office or online at www.ticketmaster.co.nz or 0800 111 999 or 09 970 9700.

ENDS

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