Writers' Note:
Horror films have been a large part of American culture for years. Night of the Living Dead is more than half a century old, and yet there are many aspects of the film that are still relevant today. The quest we set out for ourselves was to create a play that could be performed in a safe environment and address the issues of today while still paying tribute to the original script of Night of the Living Dead as written by George Romero and John Russo. And we wanted it to be genuinely scary.
Our initial idea was to adapt the movie script into a radio show but realized the importance of developing the characters who would perform the show. That grew into the idea of creating an entirely new story set in modern times. Fear is the prevailing theme of any good horror story, but fear is subjective to the individual. Each character is dealing with their own fears and their actions and choices are based on their unique life experiences. As humans, we all cope with fear in different ways and we often struggle to understand or accept real-life threats because it’s more comforting to believe “that could never happen.”
KEDA's Night of the Living Dead is such a unique play and it was truly a collaborative work. We believe that the best way to tell a story is to embrace input from others who have a different perspective than we do. Our brilliant cast and director played an integral part in getting the script to its final version and their work has exceeded our highest expectations. Streaming live theatre is not ideal, but we hope audiences can imagine what this show would look like on a stage with an audience laughing, screaming and feeling every emotion simultaneously with the actors. We also hope that you will see the parallels between this new work and the original 1968 film.
