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Mike Ricci's Production of
Frankenstein 

Cast

Hans Metz	..	Josh Stoohs
Peter Schmidt	..	Jaime Tintor
Victor Frankenstein	..	Jason Scorich
Henry Clerval	..	Garrett Samson
Elizabeth Lavenza	..	Rachel Waters
William Frankenstein	..	Taylor Skalsky-Nowak
Justine Moritz	..	Jeanine Stone
Fritz	..	Wuzzles Stoohs
Lionel Mueller	..	Timothy P. O'Reilly
Fra Mueller	..	Lisa Kliner
Alphonse Frankenstein	..	Jerry Wozniak
The Creature	..	Gary Eustice
DeLacey	..	Jack Zollar
Bride of Creature	..	Danielle Ricci

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Crew

Stage Managers	. . .	Trevor Tiburzi Shelly Novak
Technical Director	. . .	Michael Ricci
Set Design, Scenic Artist, Set Director	. . .	Ellie Ricci
Original Music Composition, Live Performance Sound Design	. . .	Alex Mauldin
Lighting Design, Effects	. . .	Greg Peeler
Fight Coordinator	. . .	Michael Anderson
Sound Engineer	. . .	Trevor Tiburzi
Props	. . .	Jessica Tangedahl, Gretchen Mayer
Light Board Operator	. . .	Dan Dolinar
Billboard Artwork	. . .	Darien Johnson, Missy Matonich
Set Construction/Painting	. . .	Michael Ricci, Michael Ball, Jon Stone, Jeanine Stone, Clay Poehling, Brent Ronchetti, Rachel Waters, Flynn Adams, Jeff Kinghorn, Darien Johnson, Missy Matonich
Shift Crew	. . .	Michael Ball, Jon Stone, Clay Poehling, Flynn Adams, Aaron Donovan, Stacey Karger, Adam Lulay
Costumes	. . .	Michael Ricci, Rachel Waters, Jeanine Stone
Box Office	. . .	Iris Fisher, Lois Schmidt
Publicity	. . .	Rich Kampsula, LeAnn Cvar, Josh Stoohs

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Director Notes

 True or False: Frankestein is

• a monster
• inarticulate
• brain damaged
• man-made by a chap named Henry
• in a castle laboratory
• watched over by a hunchback
• and he litters the countryside
• with corpses until the peasants come forth
• with torches
• destroyed in a flaming windmill 

If that sentence made sense to you, then you've been duped by the movies all of these years and are in need of returning to Mary Shelley's original novel. If you answered 'false' one through ten, then you're in solid with Shelley and out of step with the rest of the world.

In the minds of audiences, 'Frankenstein' lumbers on as one of the most abiding (if not brain-burned) of all movie myths. But the monster that came back to life in the back lot lab of Universal Studios in 1931 is a far and distant cry from the creature that Shelley advanced in her classic story, they are related in name only, and not even that if you want to be technical about it. Hollywood merely borrowed the title and took it from there -- straight to the top of the horror film heap. Shelley had something much different in mind when, at the age of 21, she wrote the tale, not so much as a horror story, but as a philisophical study about an ordinary mortal who played God, gave life and paid the penalty for such presumption. He was a student of physiology, named Victor Frankenstein, and the creature he stitched together from leftover human parts never acquired a name more personal than, simply, Creature. Indeed, Victor recoiled in speechless horror at his handiwork, and that rejection (instead of brain damage) provoked violence and an epic chase across the continent into the Arctic Circle where both the creator and his creation died, sadder but wiser, of natural causes.

The stage version, written by Victor Gialanella, was being compared to the stage version of 'Dracula' when it opened on Broadway in 1981. However, these two stories are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Dracula is the prototype of the unworldy -- the goblin, the vampire, the demon, the being that exists on its own as purely an evil force, and the ulitmate point of the story is the fight between good and evil. Frankenstein falls into the second category of of horror monsters -- man-made monsters (and into that you can put all the prehistoric monster movies that are a result of nuclear mutation) with the theory that is man creates something and it goes wrong, it comes back to destroy its creators.

In bringing the story to life on the stage, Gialanella decided to use the movies to introduce plot elements that the audience didn't know about and do it in such a way that they wouldn't be disoriented from their frame of reference. The truth of the matter is that most people, when they hear the word 'Frankenstein' conjure up film images -- thunder, lightning, laboratory, Boris Karloff. So then, the trick is to take the trappings of the movies -- the familiarity of Frankenstein, and through them, go back into the novl. From the novel, we come to understand that Shelley's Creature is more a victim than a menacing hulk. His capacity to feel pain, and to comprehend the meaning of his futile life, moves us to share with him in his search to find some meaning and purpose to his existence. The fact that his creator, Victor, does not take responsibility for his creation, sets a series of events in motion from which there is no turning back. As most tragic stories, we already know how it must end, but perhaps there is a lesson to be learned along the way. After all this story is just a fairy tale. This thing couldn't really happen ... could it?

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Play Photos

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