Loud Fridge planning zombie version of Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’

Fredy Gomez Cruz, left, and Kaylin Saur rehearse a scene from Loud Fridge Theatre Group’s “Twelfth Night of the Living Dead (Or What You Kill).” (Courtesy of Clay Greenhalgh)

UPDATED: June 21, 2024 at 8:49 a.m.

The lovesick Duke Orsino at the outset of “Twelfth Night” declares “If music be the food of love, play on.”

In the toothy mashup “Twelfth Night of the Living Dead (Or What You Will),” people are the food of hungry zombies, among them the harrowing heroine Viola. The show is being staged at the City Heights Performance Annex.

This adaptation of one of William Shakespeare’s best loved comedies was written by Amanda Schaar. The playwright’s third world premiere is also the biggest, most ambitious production yet for 5-year-old Loud Fridge Theatre Group. Its director of operations, Kate Rose Reynolds, directs a cast of 12, including Kaylin Saur as Viola.

Reynolds herself portrayed Viola in a Arabian Shakespeare Festival’s production of “Twelfth Night” six years ago in the Bay area.

“I love ‘Twelfth Night,’” Reynolds said. “I also really love horror and I love zombies, so this was something that I got very excited about. When I brought it (Schaar’s adaptation) to the board of Loud Fridge they were equally excited about the chance to imagine a different kind of Shakespeare.”

Schaar was inspired after seeing a similar zombie adaptation of “Twelfth Night” several years ago. Referencing a friend’s take on it, Schaar said the play “is like you hollowed out the guts of Shakespeare, left this beautiful shell and now it has this chewy zombie center.”

Shakespeare’s words are preserved faithfully in “Twelfth Night of the Living Dead.” It’s just that there are zombies grunting, looming, munching. The original “might be Shakespeare’s finest comedy,” Schaar said. “It’s just full of the most beautiful language. In a sense I feel like what I’ve done is sacrilege.”

Fun sacrilege.

“I’ve always had a fascination with the supernatural canon,” said Schaar. “Especially the supernatural creatures that are less strictly defined. Zombies are compelled somehow to eat their fellow man. But other than that, some of them use tools, some of them can climb stairs, some of them move insanely fast. We can get the audience to project onto them.”

For Reynolds, this is her first time directing Shakespeare, even if it’s one in which one play resides within the other.

“We’re not doing ‘Twelfth Night.’ We’re doing ‘Twelfth Night of the Living Dead.’ While it’s useful to refer to the original text, this story has its own rhythm. You can’t lose track of the fact that we’re living in the world of ‘Twelfth Night,’ but it’s quite shocking how much that changes when Viola is a zombie,” Reynolds said.

This show’s Viola (Saur) has a circus acrobat background and also has a drag king persona (as TJ Barr), both of which make her an ideal fit for the role of the gender-bending “Twelfth Night” protagonist.

Danny Campbell, left, and Julia Giolzetti rehearse a scene from Loud Fridge Theatre Group's "Twelfth Night of the Living Dead (or What You Kill)." (Courtesy of Clay Greenhalgh) — Danny Campbell, left, and Julia Giolzetti rehearse a scene from Loud Fridge Theatre Group’s “Twelfth Night of the Living Dead (or What You Kill).” (Courtesy of Clay Greenhalgh)

“She’s a mover first and foremost, which is what I wanted because Viola starts out as a zombie,” said Reynolds. “She communicates with a wide range of sounds. It’s a role that needed someone who can conjure a huge amount of emotional range.

“Because one of the themes of ‘Twelfth Night” is gender and gender identity, and because she also has a background in drag performance, I felt that Kaylin had the opportunity to contribute to the gender play inherent in the text of ‘Twelfth Night,” and that’s certainly something we’ve (Loud Fridge) leaned into.”

Reynolds said rehearsals for “Twelfth Night of the Living Dead” with a cast that also includes among its 12 artists Nick Kennedy, Liliana Talwatte, William BJ Robinson, Julia Giolzetti and Danny Campbell, have been to die for.

“Half the time when the room disintegrates into giggles, it’s from something that is inherent in the original text,” Reynolds said. “Half the time it’s from the zombies.”

Schaar puts this cast, some of whom are having their first exposure to The Bard, in the best perspective of all: “It’s nice,” she said, “for some of these people to cut their teeth on some Shakespeare.”