Blood Bucket Ballyhoo

Thu, Jun 30 - Sat, Aug 13
8:00 pm - 10:30 pm
$18 and $20 general admission, $69 for a Shock Box Seat for Two

The world's only Grand Guignol triple terror stage show is back!
Following the spectacular success of last fall's wildly popular
Welcome to the Hypnodrome (a Halloween treat held over till Christmas!)
THRILLPEDDLERS, veteran purveyors of perverse stage shenanigans,
return with an even more elaborate evening of hospitable horror
- Blood Bucket Ballyhoo!

Also returning are the Hypnodrome's notorious "Shock Boxes" -
devilishly renovated - in which audience members will actually
feel the effects of bizarre mind control, rat catcher's poisonous
gas and Blood Bucket Ballyhoo's electro-magnetic lights-out finale!
(Patrons who book these private "Shock Box" seats for two are advised
to bring someone they enjoy clutching in terror.)

With this fresh summer show, THRILLPEDDLERS is declaring its
transformation from an annual Halloween-season tradition into
a year-round smorgasbord of sensation, combining works of vintage
Grand Guignol with contemporary, original plays by noted crime
and horror authors.

The new show debuts a pair of wickedly dark sex farces by playwright
Rob Keefe. In "Lips of the Damned," illicit lovers are locked
in a museum of antique torture devices, with sexy and skin-crawling
results. The show features an array of diabolical devices, including
a scold's bridal, a Victorian funeral cortege (complete with
coffin alarm, should the dead awaken), and a frighteningly authentic
recreation of the first guillotine, built in 1792. All are put
to good use in Keefe's maniacally suspenseful curtain raiser.


"A Slight Tingling," the uproariously blood-soaked closer, climaxes
with a sensational Lights-Out Spook Show. Two venerable veterans
of the old Spook Show circuit, Steve Conners and Dick Newton,
advised Thrillpeddlers in the creation of the show's special effects.
Conners was the longtime assistant and now the heir to the secrets of =20=

famed Ghostmaster "Dr. Silkini," and Newton toured throughout the =20
1940s with "Dr. Ogre Banshee's Chasm of Spasms."

The black comedies bookend the evening's dramatic centerpiece,
"The Drug," a 1930 thriller set in the opium dens of Saigon.
San Francisco's resident Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller, penned the
adaptation. "Rene Breton's original two-act play is a compact
noir mystery," Muller says. "It's sexy and seductive, but builds
inexorably to a very Grand Guignol climax." Hinting at how horrible
that climax might be, Muller notes that Jonathan Horton, who
created Jeff Goldblum's makeup for The Fly, designed the prosthetic
effects used in "The Drug" (see attached press photo).

Things get more contemporary starting Saturday, July 2, when Mel Gordon,
America's foremost expert on the history of Grand Guignol theatre,
debuts his original play "Abu Ghraib," Gordon stokes the scenario's
"for us or against us" rhetoric to the ultimate Grand Guignol outrage.

Also beginning Saturday, July 2, The Hypnodrome will present Special
Midnight Shows of Blood Bucket Ballyhoo, for patrons who really
know how to stretch out a summer weekend. "The midnight shows will be =20=

full of surprises, like a theatrical s=E9ance." says THRILLPEDDLERS' =20=

producer-director Russell Blackwood. "We're listing the curtain time =20=

as 11:45 so we'll have everyone in their seats, ready to go. This =20
year is the 150th anniversary of spirit theatre, and we think this is =20=

the proper way to celebrate it. And it's only one of the ideas we're =20
working on the make the late shows special for the hardcore fans who =20
stay up late with us!"

WHO:
THRILLPEDDLERS - San Francisco-based leaders of the Grand Guignol
Revival!

WHAT:
Blood Bucket Ballyhoo - A summer of "Must See" Shock-Show attractions =20=

from the mondo to macabre!

WHERE:
The Hypnodrome - 575 10th Street (between Bryant and Division),
San Francisco.

DATES:
Every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, June 23 - August 13.

TIMES:
8 p.m. nightly, plus a special Midnight Show (11:45 curtain) every =20
Saturday
starting July 2.

TICKETS:
$18 advance / $20 Door / $69 SHOCK BOX for two.
On-line tickets available at www.inhousetickets.com
Or in-person at the TIX Booth in Union Square.
More Info: www.hypnodrome.com and 415-248-1900

Venue:

The Hypnodrome
575 10th St. (between Bryant and Division)
San Francisco
415-248-1900

The Hypnodrome is located at 575 10th St. (between Bryant and =20
Division). The arrow of the "One Tree" mural at 10th and Bryant =20
points straight to it.

Additional Info:

415-248-1900
http://www.hypnodrome.com