KARAOKEAPOCALYPSE (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

Kinda/sorta. Actually, a show like this is very difficult to spoil, because it changes.  But I'll get to that in a moment.

Remember when  you were maybe thirteen years old? And you had this great idea of a party? One where you'd get to celebrate all those horror movies and monster comics and weird stuff you loved?  Of course you didn't have any money, but if only there were some basement or attic room--a place to set up some black lights and enact some really cool creepy stuff from the Halloween Haunted House last year, but this time with some friends who really understood?

I never had that party, for a whole host of reasons. Probably only a very few of us ever did. But this show--Karaokeapocalypse at ZJU--is exactly that event!

We have a cast in ordinary, grungy clothes, wearing ghoulish if generic makeup. We have spooky music to dance to--sung live and sometimes we the audience joined in (at one point given makeshift musical instruments). Action figures re-enacted a cheesy movie, followed by a werewolf puppet singing a song. Games and dance. Posters used to set the mood exactly the way we imagined doing so way back in our early teens.

But I cannot give you a cast list per se, because each performance will have a different cast! Each show will consist of different, fresh, fun and (yeah, let us say it) a little bit sophmoric "acts." Which is the whole point! In Australia, where December falls squarely in the heat of summer, there's a holiday called Christmas in July.  That is really what this show ends up as in many ways--Halloween in Spring!

Therein lies the key to the essential question every theatre review seeks to answer--should you go to see this show?  It all depends on how much you like Halloween. Does this kind of party sound like fun, keeping in mind it isn't run by a bunch of barely-teenagers who don't really know what they're doing? No, these folks are theatre professionals and having a great time.  You're invited to come along.  To listen to recordings of Vincent Price and sing "They're Coming to Take Me Away" and just relax.  Halloween revisited.

Me, I had a blast!


Karaokeapocalypse plays Friday nights at 11pm until April 10, 2015 at Zombie Joe's Underground Theatre Group, 4850 Lankershim Blvd (across the street from KFC, just south of the NoHo sign) North Hollywood CA 91601. Tix are $15 and you can get reservations by called (818) 202-4120 or by going to zombiejoes.tix.com