A brand new bag
By KAREN SHADE, 10/4/2006
Owen Froeschile (left, backrow), Rob Robertson, Lynn Robertson, Heather Sams (left, front row), Kaycee Johnson and Joseph Gomez are ready for "Even More Old-Fashioned Poison Candy." MIKE SIMONS / Tulsa World
50 Swats offers spooky goodies in '06 version of 'Poison Candy'
They've played this game before, but you never know what 50 Swats will pull out of its bag of twisted, sugar-crusted goodies.
Perhaps the best definition of "Even More Old-Fashioned Poison Candy" comes from the group itself, which describes the show on www.nightingaletheater.com as a "hot, gooey, spooky mess."
50 Swats, the writers' group of friends and regulars of the Nightingale Theater, 1416 E. Fourth St., will stage "Even More Old-Fashioned Poison Candy" throughout October, starting at 8 p.m. Thursday
This year's show is directed by Nightingale owner Sara Cruncleton, but she insists that the production is as true to the spirit of collaboration as it is to its Halloween theme.
"I say I'm the director of the show, but overall, the entire thing is really more of the collective," she said.
"Poison Candy" is the third show in as many years that 50 Swats has conjured up. Past offerings have thrown together singing vampires in tights, static-chewing baby dolls, shadow puppets and hooded, cult-like specters chanting as they close in on the audience.
The title of director, however, affords Cruncleton an exclusive privilege.
"Something that's kind of interesting about these shows is that once people (the collective's writers) have turned in their pieces, no one else knows who has written what," she said. "It's all a collective."
The anonymity leads to a fun guessing game, and only Cruncleton knows the answers. The members of the collective not only write, but some of them also act in the show.
"We've had a few actors who presumed that they knew who wrote their scene, and they started talking to me as a director. 'I know so-and-so wrote this.' I know that's not the truth at all," she said.
"Candy" will have its funny (some might call it absurd) side, but Cruncleton said there also are serious works as well as "mood pieces," added to set an eerie atmosphere.
"We've got a lot of monologues this year, which are really interesting. Our actors are having a lot of fun because monologues just allow you to focus on creating a character," Cruncleton said.
Complete with original music, the evening should be a veritable bag of goodies -- an assortment of treats yet to be inspected for consumption. "Safe" theater has never been an attribute of the Nightingale.
"With this evening, we wanted to create an entire world where a person can walk into a theater and feel totally overwhelmed and taken over by the Halloween spirit," she said.
When
8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 13-14, 20-21, and 27-28
Where
Nightingale Theater, 1416 E. Fourth St.
Tickets
$8, to reserve seats call 583-8487 [As of February 2007, 633-8666]. Show is for a mature adience.