4 degrees of Brad Dourif!

Head on over to WildClaw’s Blood Radio blog for a look at how closely linked my career is with Brad Dourif’s!  (I mean, we’re pretty close…) Check out some of the other recent activity on Blood Radio while you’re at it.

This spring I’ll be playing “Sunlight” in WildClaw’s production of William Peter Blatty’s Legion.  Sunlight is the character Brad Dourif originated in the 1990 film The Exorcist III (in tandem with Jason Miller).  Big shoes to fill, certainly, but I’m really excited for the challenge.  Brad Dourif is a favorite actor of mine, so I’m pretty thrilled to be playing a character he once played.

EP Holiday Show

A 10-minute play of mine, called HOLIDAY PARADE, will be featured as part of EP Theater’s Holiday Special. AJ Ware directs Craig Cunningham and a kickass supporting cast of Ruth Bistrow, Wayne Brumgart, and Sierra Dufault.

The Second Annual Holiday Special
December 7th-21st

LIMITED ENGAGEMENT: 9 SHOWS ONLY!

EP presents, along with Jackalope Theatre Company, 3 new short holiday comedies written by Shawn Pfautsch, Scott T. Barsotti, and Andrew Swanson. A different musical act each night playing both original and holiday tunes. Check out EPTheater.com for more information including a lineup of the musical guests.

Mondays, Industry Night, $10 for service & entertainment industry

Thursdays – Saturdays, $15 (Complimentary Holiday Beverages and Treats)

RSVP by calling 312.850.4299 or emailing info@eptheater.com

COYDOG at RhinoFest and Nighthawk Sandwich

Check out these projects I’ve got happening on off-nights early in 2010.

There’s one I wrote:

COYDOG
part of the 21st annual RhinoFest
Directed by Kate Brown
Featuring Casey Cunningham, Nora Fiffer, Melissa Riemer, and Kimberly Wiczer
Mondays at 7 PM, January 25, February 1 & 8
Prop Thtr, 3502 N Elston Ave, Chicago
$15 or pay-what-you-can
(double-bill with Underground by Jessica Wright)

And one I’m directing:

Summer Evening
by Joe Janes
part of WNEP Theater’s “Nighthawk Sandwich”
in conjunction with The (edward) Hopper Project
Featuring Casey Cunningham, Ethan Dubin, Troy Martin, Rakisha Pollard, Debbie Safeblade, and Thomas Whittington
Wednesdays at 7:30, 1/20 – 2/17
DCA Storefront Theater, 66 E Randolph St, Chicago
Cheap!  $10 I believe.  And a free party afterwards hosted by the City of Chicago Dept. of Cultural Affairs!

Come see!

WNEP Theater and The (edward) Hopper Project

I was recently cast in WNEP Theater’s next production, which is titled The (edward) Hopper Project, and will be directed by the AWG himself, Don Hall.  Performances will take place at the DCA Storefront Theater, 66 E Randolph in downtown Chicago.

There’s lots more info about the project and how it came into existence over at WNEP’s website, so I won’t go too much into detail here, except that 9 writers in the WNEP family (Mary Jo Bolduc, Jen Ellison, Bob Fisher, Tom Flanigan, Don Hall, Merrie Greenfield, Joe Janes, Cholley Kuhaneck, and Rebecca Langguth) wrote pieces inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper.  The result is a lovely, episodic script about brief encounters, long-awaited reunions, missing pieces, and burning subtext.  The kinds of moments whose importance can’t be known until days, months, years later.  Or, as I phrased it at an early reading: “This is life, as you missed it.”  (I don’t even really know what that means, but I thought it sounded apt somehow.)

WNEP Theater presents:

The (edward) Hopper Project

Written by
Mary Jo Bolduc, Jen Ellison, Bob Fisher, Tom Flanigan, Don Hall,
Merrie Greenfield, Joe Janes, Cholley Kuhaneck, Rebecca Langguth

Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper

Directed by Don Hall

January 15 – February 21
Thursdays – Saturdays at 7:30 p.m.; Sundays at 3 p.m.
(No performance on Friday, February 12, due to the holiday)
Storefront Theater, 66 E. Randolph Street
Tickets: $20 general admission; $15 for seniors and students

www.dcatheater.org or (312) 742-TIXS (8497)

Photo: Mary Jo Bolduc and Erin Orr

Exploring the genre of Fear – F News

I was recently given a profile in F Newsmagazine, a student pub at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Many thanks to Rita DeAngelo for a thoughtful and well-written article!

“More than comedy or drama, Barsotti explained, the fear genre is transcultural. Everyone is afraid of the unknown, the supernatural, the Other. As he sees it, decent horror is viscerally frightening, good horror is psychologically frightening, and great horror is both. By creating relatable scenarios, Barsotti’s horror is heightened. The audience members then can associate with it, recalling fears and projecting them onto what they are watching unfold. In this way, the viewers fill the unanswered with their own thoughts, inciting fear in a more personal way.” Read full article

THE REVENANTS heads the Pittsburgh City Paper ‘Short List’

Bill O’Driscoll at the Pittsburgh City Paper gave THE REVENANTS a nice preview in this week’s Short List.  It’s accompanied by a lovely photo of Makeda Duncan-Parker and Valentina Benrexi, taken by director Mark Whitehead:

“Zombies, like vampires, warrant endless metaphorical revision. George Romero cast the undead as living vessels for, among other things, racism and consumerism. Lately, with zombies only more popular in popular culture, we’ve heard (in The Wall Street Journal, no less) about “zombie houses,” foreclosed and vacant. Now North Hills native Scott T. Barsotti has a new twist. The Chicago-based playwright uses zombification as a metaphor for cataclysmically altered personal relationships — a new way to explore what makes us human.”  Read More…
~ Bill O’Driscoll

THE REVENANTS in Pittsburgh…they’re coming…

Just saw this today, the PPTCO poster for THE REVENANTS, and some notices in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh City Paper, and Pittsburgh Galleries Blog.  Getting very excited…

Tickets!

If Albee was a horror fan…

In the days following Deathscribe, there have been several lovely writeups of the show on various blogs, including…

“DEATHSCRIBE 2009 proved to be an extraordinary night for both theater and horror fans alike…a completely triumphant event.”
~ Chicago Stage Review

“I…remember finding and downloading some of the old horror serials that were similar to The Twilight Zone in style and content. It is these radio shows that DEATHSCRIBE 2009 reminded me of…It was quite an enjoyable night.”
~ SHU-IZMZ

…and a few nice bits about THE SKINNY MAN:

“[The Skinny Man] provokes both my primordial fear of chthonic spaces (basements) and my rational and experience-derived disgust of cockroaches. It is a creepy-crawly piece with lots of cursing and mummy-dry wheezing, with the Foley Artist banging out sounds of brick and mortar crumbling and things that go SHATTER in the dark.”
~ Killer-Works.com

“Scott T. Barsotti, author of a previous WildClaw production, The Revenants, closed out the night with his vaguely Blair Witchy The Skinny Man…Let me tell ya, the foley artist did a lot of celery and lettuce crunching for this one.”
~ Fearful Symmetries

Fearful Symmetries also, I just realized, wrote a wonderfully in-depth review of WildClaw’s production of THE REVENANTS after seeing it on closing weekend, opening with this:

“If Edward Albee was a horror fan, he might have concocted The Revenants wherein a man and a woman try to plumb the depths of their affections for one another and for their undead spouses. Instead it was Scott T. Barsotti who penned the play…”

I love it.

DEATHSCRIBE rocks the Music Box

Thank you to all of the writers, directors, performers, foley artists, musicians, readers, and listeners who made DEATHSCRIBE 2009 such a successful evening of radio horror!

HUGE thanks to Katie McLean, Kate Brown, Mike Ooi, and Ron Kuzava for making THE SKINNY MAN as creepy, intense, and awesome as I could have ever hoped. Could not be more thrilled with my director and cast, not to mention Brian Amidei and Scott Tallarida for their outstanding and chilling foley work (on my play and throughout the evening…Brian and Scott kicked ass).

Also, big big thanks to everyone at WildClaw, I’m humbled to work alongside these folks.

And hearty congratulations to Chris Hainsworth, whose heart-breaking and disturbing play Remembrance won the Bloody Axe.

Sometime soon, WildClaw will be releasing podcasts with recordings of Deathscribe 2009, including all five produced plays, and posting them to the Blood Radio blog. I’ll be sure to link to them when they’re available!

DEATHSCRIBE Promo!

Check this out.

This was put together by WildClaw ensemble members Charlie Athanas and Aaron Christensen, with help from Craig Spidle and Scott Tallarida. Freaking awesome and awesomely freaky.

DEATHSCRIBE is this Monday at the Music Box. You can still get tickets through WildClaw’s site and TicketWeb.