Carnival of Psychos at Great Star Theater

Calamitous carny, Samson Y Hiss, the award-winning composer and record-holding one-man band, brings his psychotic ooze of opera, silhouettes and circus horror to The Great Star Theater in San Francisco, CA. The theatrical experience features an original story, operatic vocals, circus performers, stunt artists, overhead projector and silhouettes and a live band.

Patient 51 escapes an insane asylum, falls headfirst into a traveling carnival and flees across the desert from the authorities—a wake of vultures. Patient 51, a newly committed anarchist, endures experimental shock “therapy.” There's Manhattan, the militant head nurse who turns patients into guinea pigs. And Joplin, the carnival fairy and fearful employee of a traveling sideshow. Carnival of Psychos isn't a place, but a theatrical escape hatch into terror and lunacy.

Story

The concept for this experience came after a trip to the Fremont Psychiatric Hospital and a call for an extraction. "5150" refers to an involuntary hold in a psychiatric facility for people who are deemed dangerous, or are gravely disabled from a mental health breakdown. Passing from the waiting room through a security door and encountering a carnival of noise, inspiration struck like a barbed needle.

Music

Hiss’ credits include One-Handed Witch, Poison Circus and Circus Screams, film and theatre works about witchcraft and mental illness. His cacophonous music is a roller coaster ride from beginning to end. The melodies dance and the trills thrill. Each piece of discordant music utilizing electric organ, saxophone, tuba and percussion.

Opera

Art songs, the hinges and catapults of a Hiss theatrical story, are performed by opera stars from the Bay Area and beyond. Stars from La Boheme and Willy Wonka join the cast of Carnival of Psychos bringing the drama and window-shaking vibrato.

Shadows

Immersed in a world of light and shadow, Italian shadow puppet artist of One-Handed Witch fame, Rita Deiola (Svegliati Europa) creates silhouette frames to be performed with an overhead projector for Carnival of Psychos. Life is breathed into psychotic scenes.

Circus

Reputation precedes the hijinx and disaster follows the mayhem. Injecting Carnival of Psychos with reimagined classic acts and new sideshow stunts are masters of their craft, artists from The Ruckus Revival and Circus Center.

General Admission Tickets: $25 to $35
Premium Tickets: $70 (front row seat, monogrammed kazoo and theatre candy)
Website: www.samsonYhiss.com

Time:  20:00 -  21:30