One of the first horror films that I ever saw was Night of the Living Dead. I was way too young to be watching it, but I couldn’t look away. It seemed like a documentary in some nightmarish way. The news briefs on the tv, the breaking news on the radio, it all felt somehow too real.
You see, I grew up in Western Pennsylvania, where the film is set. Sitting there as a young boy and recognizing landmarks and town names made it all the more real. Besides the whole “being eaten alive” thing that zombies bring the threat of, they also bring relentless chase, and home invasion. This trifecta is the sum of the worst fears for me.
Fast forward to 2001. I’m an adult (barely). I live with my partner in Arlington, VA. I work at a dog daycare center by the Capitol in DC. 9/11 happens. I am there at work when the planes hit. I hear a boom and see smoke plumes from the Pentagon. It was a scary day, as we all know. I was the only person driving on 295 on my way home.
Fast forward a week. The Anthrax attacks begin. I’m suddenly afraid to get the mail. The DC area is hit, and a postal sorting station in the Brentwood area is shut down. They don’t know who is doing the attacks, or why. The attackers are unknown.
Fast forward a year. I’m at work again at the dog daycare center. I hear of multiple shootings not far from where I am. Four people shot that morning, one that evening. The DC Sniper is on the loose. For three weeks, the DMV area is terrorized by the possibility of being shot by an unknown assassin. It turned out there was more than one.
One evening in particular, was too close to home. The sniper had shot someone at our local Home Depot. Police had shut down almost every road in and out of the area in response. I could see the gridlock from our dining room window. I put up “blackout” curtains in case the sniper was stuck in this traffic and decided to start shooting into people’s windows. (I fully acknowledge that this made zero sense.)
As I was hanging my blackout curtains, I had the tv on the news, and I finally had to change the channel. I flipped through till I landed on my childhood’s favorite terror…Night of the Living Dead was playing on A&E. After a few minutes, it dawned on me that the characters in the film were boarding up their windows as I was hanging blackout curtains over my own. I sat down on the couch, gobsmacked by the irony. I was living in my favorite horror film.
A month later I was in rehearsals for The Secret Garden at Olney Theatre in Maryland (no secret there - one of the worst shows I’ve ever been in). I was playing the part of Dickon, so I had a few great songs and scenes, but was basically on stage for about 15 minutes out of a two and a half hour musical. I had lots of downtime. So I started researching, dreaming, sketching ideas. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to do something.
What I’m Listening to at the time: “You Know You’re Right” - Hole, Lewis Black comedy specials, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Def Leppard’s Greatest Hits, O Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack…
I bought my first DVD player during the run of that show, and my first disc that I bought was an anniversary edition of Night of the Living Dead. I studied it. Although I had a VHS tape of the film, and had seen the film hundreds of times, now I had a much clearer copy, with quick capability to skip around or back.
That Summer, I was playing “Ren” in Footloose at Toby’s Dinner Theatre in Columbia, Md. In the cast with me was Nick Blaemire, playing Willard. I mentioned wanting to turn NOTLD into a stage musical, and he was excited by the idea. We started to meet, talk, and text about it. He started toying with a song called, “You Always Have a Smile for Me” for Tom and Judy. I remember loving it, and thinking that this first song had so much possibility. Nick went off to College, and we never really did continue working on that show.
I briefly entertained working on the show with Steve McWilliams, but he didn’t really seem the right fit for the show. He suggested that I ask Matt to work on it with me. I asked, but he was fairly dismissive, and not really interested. For the next seven years, ideas kicked around in my head, but not much else happened with the show.
What I’m Listening to at the Time: “I Think I’m In Love” - Jessica Simpson, “Why Can’t I?” - Liz Phair, “Crazy in Love” - Beyoncé, “Real Love” - Pink, “Bring Me to Life” - Evanescence.
Lots of things happened between 2003 and 2010. The Space-shuttle Columbia disaster. Reagan dies. Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse revealed. Hurricane Katrina. Barack Obama is elected. Swine Flu.
Lots of things happened in our personal lives as well. We get our first pug, Buddha. Our house at 16th St S burnt down. Matt’s new musical that he was working on gets discovered, and soon he is commissioned by Signature Theatre to write Nevermore. I won the Helen Hayes Award in 2004. The old Signature Theatre space is left behind and the new one is opened. Matt and I break up and separate. We get back together several months later.
When we do, we agree that we must start working towards things together. Not just be on our own separate orbits. So I ask him again to work towards something with me…Night of the Living Dead the Musical. He agrees to sit down and watch the film with a pen and paper. He begins taking notes. When the film is over, he immediately heads to the piano and starts writing an aria for the character of Barbara. This song will come to be known as “Johnny and Me”.
We team up with my recent costar of High Fidelity at Landless Theatre, Karissa Swanigan, to workshop the song. She becomes the poster girl for the show, and instrumental in its making. We even drive to my Nana’s cemetery and do a photo shoot/music video to promo the upcoming workshop.
We continue our work together on the show with the following caveat that he sets - you don’t see any zombies in this show. You can hear things, etc, but no visible zombies. While skeptical at first, I come to see the genius in this approach. I am reminded of being in my living room putting up block out curtains, afraid of everything and nothing specific at once.
What I’m Listening to at the Time: “Call Me Maybe”, “Somebody That I Used to Know”, “We Are Young”, the entire Adele “21” album.
We launch a Kickstarter back when Kickstarter was relatively new. We reach our goal thanks to many gracious friends and supporters. We assemble a dream cast: Karissa Swanigan, Kevin McAllister, Chris Sizemore, Gillian Shelly Lawler, Chris Mueller, and Dani Danger Stoller. We find a venue: the Kensington Armory.
We were contacted by Scott Miller of St. Louis’s New Line Theatre, and the company was interested in doing our show the next Fall. I loved the look of some of their previous work, and couldn’t wait to see Scott’s take on our show. He wrote a brilliant series of essays about the show that I loved reading. (Really- check out each link highlighted - these essays really get the show). He is such a brilliant mind, and his takes on musical theatre are very fascinating to read.
While we didn’t get to go see the show (the curse, at the time was that we were writing shows while being full time actors, and not able to go to either NYC or St. Louis to help sherpa the show), we loved the clips that we were sent, from Drive, to the opening, to the inventive marketing video that they did that incorporated the actual film trailer. The set was INCREDIBLE! I also loved how Scott used silence in the show. Sometimes there were just actors boarding up the set, and no one saying lines for several minutes. This built up an unbelievable tension. 
What I am Listening to Now: Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia album, Adele “30” album, Lil Nas X’s “Monterro” album.
The thing that I love about NOTLD is that it always is relevant. No matter how our history evolves, NOTLD has new meaning or interpretation with every passing year. It is impossible to watch NOTLD without thinking of police gunning down an innocent Black man. Seeing the insurrectionists break their way into the Capitol and crawl in through broken windows immediately brings to mind the living dead making their final breach into the Farmhouse. A pandemic raging through the world that makes everyone quarantine and pile up supplies as they avoid others while out on errands brings to mind the epidemic sweeping the Country in NOTLD.
As we watch our political system tear our Country in half, I am reminded of the characters in the Farmhouse, and how you scream at the TV, hoping that they hear you and change their course. Hoping that they work together to accomplish their goals. Knowing that self interest will prevent that from happening
The terror that younger twenty-something me felt back in the early 2000’s was valid and palpable, but was no match for the terror to come.
People often ask me why I like scary movies. Isn’t life scary enough? Yes, it is. But I think we learn from scary movies. We learn how we would react, or what we would do better. Scary movies are training for scary scenarios, although, hopefully never as dire. I don’t view NOTLD as a “scary movie”, per se. I view it as a cautionary tale for what happens without compromise and teamwork. It’s been way too long since the Farmhouse has had any visitors, and I would love to bring it back to life in the coming future with a theatre troupe that is brave enough to believe in this existential vision of the story that Matt and I created. As the news stations proclaim throughout the show, please stand by…
