Four guys survive the zombie apocalypse, not through guile or skill, but by avoiding the whole thing. Â Hiding out in the basement and playing Dungeons and Dragons, xbox and reading comics, with no one trying to get them to come out of the basement and stop playing games…well, for them, the zombie apocalypse is the best thing that ever happened to them.
That’s a summary of the story behind Dead Man’s Party, a play I am directing for Monkeyman Productions.  The play is, as you might guess, a comedy.  The play is funny, thick with “geek” references (seriously), and in case you were wondering, yes, there is a zombie attack.  As a comedy, it might be easy to dismiss the play as just fluff, but digging deeper into the play, its not just a story about four funny nerds playing role playing games while Rome burns.  The four guys have created their own little community.  This community functions and provides all of them with what they need.  But when one of them starts to long for something more…what does that mean for the community?  Can it still function?
These questions are found in the script, between the comic, movie, video game and RPG references. Â In the end, the questions about the community must take a back seat to the humour, as delving too deeply into this area might take away from the jokes (of which there are many).
Tonight, we have our first reading of the play (along with its counterpart of the evening of one-act comedies by D.J. Sylvis, Phoenix II: The Mongolar Maneuver), and I’m looking forward to hearing it out loud.