EVIL DEAD: THE MUSICAL Brings The Campy Evil To Cleveland 5/8-6/14

A cabin in the woods. The Book of the Dead. Zombies. Aggressive trees. Sexy college students. A wayward hand. Lots of catchy show tunes. Beck Center presents the Cleveland premiere of Evil Dead: The Musical in the Studio Theater May 8 through June 14. Sam Raimi's cult classic 1980s films are brought to life in this campy show. Show times are 8:00 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 3:00 p.m. Sundays.

During spring break, five college students break into an abandoned cabin in the woods and unleash evil spirits. All hell breaks loose, and the fun soon ensues with zombies...and show tunes! Written by George Reinblatt, with music by Frank Cipolla, Christopher Bond, Melissa Morris, and George Reinblatt, Evil Dead: The Musical delights with such tunes as "What the F*** Was That," "Bit Part Demon," "All the Men in My Life Keep Getting Killed by Candarian Demons," and the Rocky Horror Picture Show-inspired "Do the Necronomicon."

Blood features prominently in this show. Audience members sitting in the front three rows are guaranteed to get splattered with plenty of plasma. White t-shirts with the slogan "Splatter Zone Survivor" are available for purchase as keepsakes.

Evil Dead: The Musical comes to the Beck Center after an enormously successful 400-performance run in Toronto. "Maxim" calls it, "One musical you'll actually want to see." And The "New York Times" says it's "the next Rocky Horror Picture Show."

Evil Dead is directed by Beck Center artistic director Scott Spence. "Beck Center is thrilled to land one of the inaugural regional productions of Evil Dead: The Musical in the entire country! This send-up of ‘all things horror flicks' fits in so perfectly with some of the other wild and hysterical musicals seen in our Studio Theatre in recent seasons, including Reefer Madness, Zombie Prom, and Eating Raoul. We hope you'll leave in pain-not from the splatter zone but from laughing so hard."

The Beck Center production features Equity actor Dan Folino in the lead role of Ash. He last appeared at the Beck in THE HISTORY BOYS and was the Beast in Beck's highly popular production of Beauty and the Beast.

The show is intended for a mature audience due to language and subject matter. Tickets are $28 for adults, $25 for seniors (65 and older), and $17 for students (22 and under with ID). An additional $3 service fee per ticket is applied at the time of purchase. Preview night on Thursday, May 7, is $10 with general admission seating. Group discounts are available for parties of 13 or more. To reserve tickets, call the Beck Center box office at 216.521.2540 ext. 10 or visit www.beckcenter.org. For group sales, contact Linda Hefner at ext. 29. Beck Center is located at 17801 Detroit Avenue in Lakewood, just 10 minutes west of downtown Cleveland. Free onsite parking is available.

Beck Center's production of Evil Dead: The Musical is produced through special arrangement with Renaissance Pictures, Ltd. & Studio Canal Image, S.A. and is sponsored by Cleveland Scene, Cox Communications, and the Ohio Arts Council. Beck Center also gratefully acknowledges the citizens of Cuyahoga County for their support through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

Beck Center for the Arts is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization that offers professional Theater Productions on two stages, arts education programming in dance, music, theater, visual arts, early childhood, and creative arts therapies for special needs students, and gallery exhibits featuring local and regional artists.