February 15, 2019

These Violent Delights Reading of Jonathan Josephson’s “Romeo and Juliet”-inspired mashup of action, horror, adventure and romantic comedy. Theatre West, 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West, L.A. Wed. Pay what you want. RSVP at www.jonathanjosephson.com.

November 1, 2018

Oh, Halloween. You're no longer a single day of the year, but a full-on month of spooky celebrations.  And when we say "month" we actually mean that you start around Labor Day, or just before, when jumbo bags of candy corns pop up on the store shelves and the earliest theme park extravaganzas begin to eerie-up our weekend evenings. Which all leads to this: Nowadays, for many fans of the macabre, the night of Halloween can come too quickly. Or, at the very least, a Halloween maven can find herself on November 1, feeling as though she let a number of phantom-fun events pass her by.
 

Wicked Lit: The Chimes and the Corpse: If you've heard about the drama vignettes presented at a real mausoleum, then you're not alone, for this production keeps building the buzz, year after year. Mountain View Mausoleum in Altadena is the spot, and the two presentations, "The Chimes: A Goblin Story" and "Teig O'Kane and the Corpse" will both wrap on Saturday, Nov. 10.

October 21, 2018

A new production of “The Chimes: A Goblin Story” by Jonathan Josephson, adapted from the novella of the same name and directed by Darin Anthony, tells the story of a conflicted father and the goblins that bring him to the brink of death and back again after he banishes his daughter for disrespecting his edict. While I definitely appreciated being able to sit during the entire play and the skill with which the actors presented their characters, especially Christopher Wallinger and Lamont Webb as the two goblins, Toby Veck (Richard Large), the story seemed very familiar, in the same vein as “A Christmas Carol” in which Scrooge is visited by ghosts who convince him to live his life in a more humanitarian way and “It’s a Wonderful Life” in which angel-in-training Clarence visits George Bailey to show him how different life would turn out if he takes his own life. So no surprise ending here. Filling out the cast are Hope Lauren as willful daughter Meg Veck and Daniel Dorr as Richard Wells, a struggling writer who is the object of her affections much to the chagrin of her father.

October 11, 2018

(Starts at 43:14) This year is the tenth annual production of “Wicked Lit,” which takes classic horror literature and converts it to the stage, or more accurately, the cemetery. Every year for a month or so around Halloween, Wicked Lit performs during the evenings in the Mountain View Mausoleum in Altadena. Attendees are put in small groups and led through various locations throughout the cemetery depending on which performance they are watching. Take Two contributor Mary Knauf visited the troupe to get a behind the scenes look at the performance.

January 10, 2018

For the past decade, Jonathan Josephson and his team at Unbound Productions have crafted some of the most elaborate Halloween frights in Los Angeles by staging live play adaptations of classic horror stories in their Wicked Lit performance series. The audience-immersive evenings lead sold-out audiences through up to three different plays staged throughout the indoor and outdoor grounds of the Mountain View Cemetery and Mausoleum in Altadena. 
 

On Sunday, Josephson will present a different sort of audience experience when he hosts a “Wicked Lit” book signing event, in which some of the series’ top playwrights will read from their plays and discuss their creative process at the Dark Delicacies horror bookstore in Burbank. The evening represents another step in the maturation of Unbound’s efforts to bring classics to modern audiences in unique ways, while also enabling their best works to be read by far-flung audiences. 

October 25, 2018

Continuing with their critically-acclaimed third season, Force of Nature Productions will honor three of their acclaimed affiliated writers with three special nights of staged readings. Performed by an ensemble of seasoned Force of Nature actors, the playwrights will also take part in the three evenings on stage, reading stage directions for each of their plays and providing brief introductions and career-context for each of their pieces. Some gentle razzing may also ensue. Said Artistic Director Sebastian Muñoz, "Over the years, these playwrights have contributed many great characters and numerous memorable plays to our company and community of patrons. We thought it was time to give them the spotlight, hear their stories from their own mouths, present some of the short plays their most proud of, and also give them the opportunity to share something entirely NEW with our audiences!"

October 18, 2018

The troupe’s “Wicked Lit” series of audience-interactive one-act plays based on classic horror stories has played to sold-out crowds, drawing over 14,000 patrons to Altadena during the past five years alone. They’ve also bested the local theater scene by winning numerous Ovation Awards and have been picked as the “Best Halloween Event of the Year” by Hollywood Gothique.

While their daring concept has certainly paid off with both critical acclaim and popular success, Josephson recalls that even he was surprised that the owners of Mountain View were open to the concept. With this year’s smash-hit edition, titled “The Chimes and the Corpse,” presently running through Nov. 10, he took a look back to the earliest days of his idea coming to fruition.

October 9, 2018

The first performance, produced for Wicked Lit back in 2010 and 2011, is called The Chimes: A Goblin Story, adapted by Jonathan Josephson from a novella by Charles Dickens. Toby Veck (Richard Large) is haunted by literal and metaphorical goblins (Christopher Wallinger and Lamont Webb) after denying daughter Meg (Hope Lauren) his blessing to marry a philosopher (Daniel Dorr). It’s very A Christmas Carol, as they’re essentially the Ghosts of Christmas Future, showing Toby the ramifications of his choices. Most of the show is set in pews, with the audience having to turn from the front to the back of the room and back again, which, while not difficult, could be problematic or distracting for some. Presumably with the Dickens pedigree, they’re supposed to be in England, but it’s tough to pin down because the accents are dodgy. Director Darin Anthony lets it get a little shouty, and the demons look as if they escaped from the set of The Lost Boys, which doesn’t really add to a sense of horror.

November 9, 2018

A Night in JJ’s Shorts Staged readings of short plays by local playwright Jonathan Josephson. The Belfry Stage (Upstairs), 11031 Camarillo St., North Hollywood. Thu., 8 p.m. $15. www.fonproductions.com.

October 23, 2018

For several years now, I have counted Altadena’s Wicked Lit among my absolute favorite Halloween-time immersive theater events in Southern California. The annual production, launched a decade ago, has taken over Southern California’s Mountain View Mausoleum (and previously Greystone Mansion and Millennium Biltmore Hotel) to stage reinterpreted horror stories as living, breathing, experiences.

Wicked Lit attendees follow actors from scene to scene as they move through real space, and though the show isn’t interactive in the usual sense we consider immersive theater, characters will occasionally address the audience. Essentially upon stepping into the mausoleum, you become part of a silent Greek chorus, watching and judging the actions and stories you see before you, without input of your own.

October 11, 2018

Autumn may be dominated by pumpkin spice lattes, but a good (read: better) reason to anticipate the arrival of October is the spooky-themed events that take place leading up to Halloween. Joining the fun for the tenth year in a row is Unbound Productions’ Wicked Lit, an immersive theater experience taking place within a beautiful, but chilling setting: Altadena’s Mountain View Mausoleum. Designed partially as a walking tour, the performances take place beside the vaults of the dearly departed. The two plays featured this year, Teig O’Kane and the Corpse and The Chimes: A Goblin Story, are both charming tales that lend themselves well to Wicked Lit’s interactive theme.

October 9, 2018

Wicked Lit 2018's condensed show (approximately 75 minutes) is not as overwhelming as its past extravaganzas. You are not going to encounter a giant snake or see Mountain View Mausoleum (courtesy of digital mapping) crash down around you, as in the 2015 adaptation of The Fall of the House of Usher. However, you will get two supernatural horror stories, staged in a remarkably immersive environment, that strive to elevate the genre into something more substantial than the standard Halloween haunt. With their 2018 show, Unbound Productions reminds us that Wicked Lit need not be grandiose in order to be great.