Bradley Wrenn as Tommy Ross with Erik Ransom as Carrie White

Q&A with Michael Alltop
Director, Carrie
Producing Artistic Director, BRAT Production

What about Erik Jackson’s script made you say “Okay, we have to do this!”? What about Erik Jackson’s adaptation of Carrie is decisively BRAT?

Michael Alltop: I met Erik through a mutual friend when I was looking for a writer to help BRAT create a new musical based on the songs of Devo. (Yep, that’s coming in 2012!) Erik sent me some of his plays, and Carrie was one of them. Just a few pages in, I knew I wanted to direct this play. At the time I thought BRAT was going to remount Haunted Poe for Halloween, but when we had to vacate the space where we had produced the show, I knew I needed something, and quickly. I had Carrie right in front of me, and the pieces all just fell into place…telekinetically, you might say.

If Erik had written a more conventional adaptation of Stephen King’s novel, with the title role played by a woman, I’m not so sure I would have liked it as much. If you look at the work we’ve done over the years—Fatboy, Eye-95 Re-tarred, A Very Merry Unauthorized Scientology Pageant, Naked Cocktail, A 24-Hour The Bald Soprano—I don’t think anyone would ever accuse BRAT of being “conventional.” The “B” and “R” in BRAT stand for “Bold” and “Rough,” and I saw those same elements in Jackson’s adaptation of Carrie. Here was a script that dared to mess with an iconic female character and then went further—by transforming a horror story into a black comedy. Part of the comedy in the script will actually be played out in the effects, in the sheer impossibility of doing some of these things in a “realistic” manner. We’re not shooting for realism or Disney slickness—once you put a man in a dress, you’ve crossed some sort of line—but part of the fun of the show, I hope, will be for the audience to suspend disbelief and to go on a wild and bumpy ride.

Erik Jackson’s script calls for all sorts of complicated scene changes and special effects. What do you feel will be the biggest challenge in directing this piece?

Michael: The biggest challenge we face is to find the right doses of horror, humor and camp to take a familiar story and transform in new and exciting ways. The playwright, Erik Jackson, took King's warped story and then twisted it even further. Erik has said that he wanted to tell the story in the style of “heartfelt camp," staying true to the core reality of the book while also tweaking things into comic territory. I know the acting style is going to be a challenge, to ride that line between truth and artifice, playing intentions and playing for laughs. One thing I know for sure—I want a show that's surprising and weird and scary—and funny as hell.

Then of course there are the special effects! Carrie is definitely a tech-heavy show, with all sorts of seemingly-impossible moments. We have 3 people working on FX, in addition to the set, costume, sound, lights, and props designers who will complete the magic. Some of the FX will be done relatively simply, possibly using fishing wire (such as flying objects), while other moments require the use of puppets. For instance, the pig that Billy and Chris kill in Henty's barn will be a huge, hand-crafted puppet that will actually spurt blood into a bucket. Then in another scene, we have a flashback to Carrie's tortured childhood, and the bullies are puppet bodies, with the actors' real heads and hands helping to complete a creepy/funny look. There are other FX that will utilize different types of technology to achieve the desired magic called for in the script. We're still working on how we're going to burn down the high school and flip and crash a car! In the end, we want the audience to walk out wide-eyed and saying, “I can’t believe what they were able to do in that space!”

If you, as Michael Alltop, had the power of telekinesis how would you use that power?

Michael: I would use that power for good, only for good. If I could brew coffee and float the mug to my waiting hands 10 times a day, I would. And that would be good, very good.

As this is the follow-up to Haunted Poe, how do you feel Carrie will build upon what BRAT did during last year’s Halloween season?

Michael: We were all amazed and thrilled at the audience response to Haunted Poe, and it started me thinking about Halloween…how, maybe even more than Christmas, that this is a time when people give themselves over to the imagination, to taking on different roles and opening themselves up to being creative. Now, this is what theatre people do every day, but the general public? Not so much. And the experience of going to the theatre doesn’t necessarily change that for most people. You buy your ticket, sit in a comfy seat, and usually aren’t asked to do much more than watch someone else be creative. BRAT shows like A 24-Hour The Bald Soprano and Haunted Poe are created differently. Haunted Poe, for instance, was a walk-through experience, and really brought the audience up-close and folded them into the action. I love exploring that possibility whenever possible, but with Carrie we really need to have people seated so we can fire off the 30-odd special effects called for in the script. That being said, we hope to bring some "environmental" elements into the theatre and make it look and feel like a high school circa 1979. On certain nights we will probably encourage the audience to dress up as their favorite character...or at least come dressed for the prom. We're also looking at ways of opening up the stage in the prom scene to make it seem like the audience is right there in the gym. I think that the audience's familiarity with the book and the movie will add a layer of interest and, possibly, participation in the show. For instance: I'm actually considering having one sanitary napkin waiting in each seat, for the "Plug it up! Plug it up!" moment in the opening shower scene when Carrie gets her period. Can you imagine having over 100 cotton projectiles piling up on Carrie? Having the audience bully Carrie will add to her sense of the whole world being against her. Then, I would like to see the audience become the "pigs" in Henty's barn, so that the whole theatre is filled with the sound of squealing and oinking. And finally, for the prom, it would be great if everyone is clapping and whooping it up for the Ewen High Queen of 1979, Carrie White...before all hell breaks loose...

I know quite a search went underway for the actor to play Carrie. How did you come upon Erik Ransom?

Michael: We cast the net far and wide to find the right actor to play Carrie, but in the end the perfect person was right in our own backyard. I’ve actually known Erik for several years. He did an amazing job playing numerous characters (including a woman) in our production of Naked Cocktail in 2008, and I’ve been impressed by his work as a songwriter and androgynous rock performer Damian Salt in his original musical, Coming: A Musical of Biblical Proportions. We brought him in to audition, and, with the writer Erik Jackson in the room, all decided that he could be Carrie White. Erik brings great comic chops to the table, in addition to the vulnerability and sweetness that will help us love this poor little misfit.

Do you have a Prom horror story?

Michael: Doesn’t everyone? Actually, my story isn’t that bad, but it is kind of weird. I was dating a freshman during my senior year (oops…) and her mom was an English professor at the local college. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that that mom, and another mom of a senior girl who was a friend of mine, got together to convince me that I should take the senior girl to prom instead of my freshman girlfriend. But the way it all went down was very strange: Over the course of a week or so, I received several unsigned notes—on pink stationery and with curlicue writing—that were supposedly from a “friend” of the freshman who gave me reasons why I should take the senior instead of the freshman. I got the guilt trip pretty good, and eventually decided it would be most honorable to take my friend instead of my girlfriend. But the language used by the “girl” in the note was just too perfectly done…as if the writer was trying too hard to be a teen by using slang and imperfect grammar…as if the writer was actually an adult, and a college English professor. But the note worked; I took my friend to the prom and we had a fun, albeit sober and chaste time. And not long after, my freshman girlfriend and I broke up.

Production photos by Fig Tree Photography.