I read too many blogs. I am full on pop culture entertainment dude now. I wish I could say that I am wasting my time. But, the other day, I was reading homercat at http://homercat.blogspot.com/. Now you gotta understand, homercat is responsible for instilling in me a newfound love of The Osmonds and his poker game mix tape was brilliant and had me and my mother in law !!! dancing to “strokin'” in the kitchen.
So, when Homercat hipped me to the new show, “Evil Dead: The Musical!” I was intrigued. I grabbed the tunes he uploaded and promptly told some friends who would be interested and filed it under Try to remember this when the show comes to town one in the overloaded memory cache that is my brain.
For the first time since I started doing commercials for A&W they changed the location of our shoot. We are always based out of Vancouver and then drive to whatever restaurant we are shooting at. But this time it’s different. They are going to show a little of my character’s homelife. And for that we need a nice town. Well, not for that, but for the fairy tale depiction of the bed time story I am reading my daughter in the spot.
For that we need Toronto!
I flew in from LAX, great flight, made easier by the episode of Dr. Who my friend John at Last Visible Dog wanted me to watch. It’s called Blink and it’s terrific. And, when I landed they asked if I would mind coming straight to the studio for wardrobe. No problem. If I wardrobe on Wednesday and shoot on Friday I get the entire Wednesday night and Thursday all day to do whatever I wanted.
Wednesday was spent picking up scalped tickets to the Dodgers/Blue Jays game at Rogers Center. Not a bad deal. Right Field. Good visibility. Showed up at the top of the second inning. When I sat down it was 1-0 Jays. I ate my dog looked up and five minutes later it was 4-0 Jays. Then Frank Thomas hit a grand slam. 8-0 in the second. Two innings later the Jays hit back to back homers. It was a great game.
And the hotel was only 5 minutes away by foot.
Today was something even more serendipitous and special. See I wanted to go to a restaurant for lunch to work on my lines for the shoot. I called down to the Concierge and she scoped out some places where I would also have wi-fi. And, of course, being a concierge at a 4 star hotel, she sent me to the most expensive place in the neighborhood. Had I remembered that concierges (conciergi?) always do that I would have requested something more to my liking, a bistro or lunchy coffee shop. But, no, I walked out the door, made a right and, damn if at the end of the block, not 100 yards away was The Diesel Theater. The theater where the Toronto created Evil Dead: The Musical is playing. With the original ASH!!!
Tickets were definitely available and even cheaper in the front row, the Splatter Zone! Oh, yes, I bought em. Oh, yes, I was excited.
So, after a light dinner I headed over to the theater and sat my ass down in the very front and stared at the oversized book of the necronomicon that waits on the stage, looking menacingly.
Then the lights went down and the curtain went up.
I’m not gonna review the whole show. The cast was exceptional. The blood and mayhem is a freaking gas. There are lots of sight gags, broad comic acting and a ton of meta humor. When the woman arrives from her flight and complains that the movie was Spiderman (“who directed that?”) I groaned. When the sister, the first killed and trapped in the cellar, keeps popping up with pun after pun after pun I alternated between guffaw and yawn. It was like a bunch of college kids decided to write a musical. But, you know what? That’s fine. Because, before I knew it, the first act was over.
I got recognized in the lobby, not to my face, but as I walked away I heard them mumbling about A&W. And I bought a hat and the cd. Because by now I was completely caught up in the mayhem and joy and, to be honest, I was humming the tunes. (Haven’t done THAT in a while…a long while.) 
What can I say? If you get a chance to see this show, I highly recommend it. It’s not Avenue Q. Or Little Shop of Horros (the original off b’dway show which I saw at the Orpheum in 1982 NOT the broadway production which I saw with liz 2 years ago and was…eh. It’s more like Hairspray. fun. big. Ambitious. And a blast.
Go.
