newsminer.com

FAIRBANKS — Shakespeare and zombies — sounds like a marriage made in hell.

Minneapolis, actually, but the two come together next weekend in the West Valley High School theater in the form of “William Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead.”

Written by Minneapolis playwright John Heimbuch, the play references more than a dozen Shakespeare plays as well as classic zombie movies like “Dawn of the Dead,” “Day of the Dead” and “Night of the Living Dead.”

West Valley drama teacher and theater director Mike Shaeffer said students who might never have participated in a play were drawn to the production by the chance to be zombies.

“Oh, absolutely,” he said with a laugh about the undead wannabees. “There are students who have come out of the woodwork who might have never considered trying out for a play that tried out specifically for this play. They didn’t want speaking roles, they wanted to be one of the undead.

“When given the opportunity to be a recently turned zombie with minimal gore or a zombie turned hours before with more pronounced gore and decrepitude, the choice was the gorier the better,” Shaeffer added.

Most of the zombies are female, but, “we do have a couple of guy zombies who are making an impression.”

“There are 14 speaking roles, 10 zombies on top of that,” Shaeffer added. “Of the speaking roles, the characters that start out as human are attacked and turned and eventually become zombies.”

The unlikely setting for zombiedom is Shakespeare’s Globe Playhouse, circa 1599. A plague has spread across Europe, but instead of something more akin the real Black Plague, a zombie plague begins “turning” people.

Globe actors and even Queen Elizabeth are trapped in the playhouse as they work through various machinations to keep the zombies at bay. Dialogue in this horror-comedy include not only some of Shakespeare’s most famous lines but also plenty of juicy momentos from director George Romero’s classics mentioned above, as well as more recent zombie films such as “28 Weeks Later.” Shaeffer said many of the actors are at least mildly familiar with Shakespeare, but he has not assigned the homework of watching any of Romero’s films.

“Many of the students have seen ‘Zombieland’ that’s in theater now,” he said. “They have seen the effects of the comedy horror genre this falls under.”

A few moments that might not be appropriate for anyone under 10, Shaeffer added. There is some sword play and some sudden violent, surprising attacks.

“We use real swords but not real impalement,” he said. Of course, plenty of blood and gore will flow. It must — these are zombies who, if left unchecked, may take over the earth. When staged in Minneapolis and later in Philadelphia, the play spread copious amounts of gore over the first few rows of the audience.

“There won’t be any danger of that with our production,” Shaeffer said with a laugh. “The fake blood will be minimal. Just a little to add to the atmosphere and ambience, but no one sitting in the front rows should worry about getting blood on them.”

As for the climax at the Globe Playhouse, well, bring out your undead. They won’t feel alone.