The Creature: Black Box Reading Oct.30, Podcast Oct.31

The Black Box Theatre Company presents The Creature, a live recording and podcast of a new digital adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.  Live before a studio audience Oct. 30 at 8:00PM at San Francisco's Magic Theatre.  The world premiere podcast will then air the following day, Halloween Oct. 31 at 5:00PM at www.blackboxtheatre.com.

"There are two sides to every tale, this is the creature's story," said Creature creator Trevor Allen, founder of Black Box Theatre Company. Kent Nicholson, noted Bay Area director, who will direct the new adaptation says "By telling the story from the creature's point of view, we not only explore the ethical and scientific issues in the original story, but it also becomes a story about alienation and the effect of being outcast as an 'other' in society."

Local acting treasure James Carpenter will portray the title character, Frankenstein's Creature in this new re-imagining of Shelley's master work. Other cast members include Andrew Hurteau as Captain Walton and Paul Silverman as Victor Frankenstein.

Founded by Trevor Allen, Black Box Theatre is a non-traditional and often web-based theatrical company, and received a "Best of the San Francisco Fringe Festival Award" in 2000 for Chain Reactions, a fugue-like performance inside the Morrison Planetarium at The California Academy of Sciences.  Black Box Theatre Company was also responsible for co-producing the Bay Area Shakespeare Marathon in 2000 where all of Shakespeare's plays were presented by 36 theatre companies in 10 days to raise funds for Theatre Bay Area's Mary Mason Memorial Lemonade Fund for critically ill theatre workers.

"It's thrilling to be presenting this piece in a unique and interesting new media form," exclaims Nicholson. "Something that theater does so rarely is to be at the forefront of new technologies. It's exciting to see how this can become an effective way of storytelling. Like radio of old, maybe we can learn to inspire people's imaginations in unique ways."

Admission to the Oct. 30 podcast taping is free but reservations are required due to limited seating. For more information and to reserve seats, visit www.blackboxtheatre.com or call 415-731-4922.

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