Craig Miller treads the boards at the 6th Street Playhouse
By NINA LARAMORE / Santa Rosa Correspondent
Craig Miller débuted as artistic and educational director and actor in the 6th Street Playhouse’s current production of “The Mystery of Irma Vep.”
Craig A. Miller as Lady Enid in The 6th Street Playhouse production of "The Mystery of Irma Vep."
Two actors, ten characters, two acts, more than 30 costume changes, one musical director and a slightly different play being preformed each night are some of the intriguing facts about the 6th Street Playhouse’s quick-change, cross-dressing campy comedy.
“It’s a truly magical play,” Miller said. “Our production keeps alive author Charles Ludlam’s improvisational spirit. The beauty of working with co-star Ryan Schabach, who I have worked with many times before, is our shared history and chemistry. It means I am unafraid to try anything on stage.
“The number one rule of improvisation is don’t say ‘no,’ Miller said. “Anything can happen if you’re open to it. The performance is fresh each time because with improvisation you pick up cues from the audience and poke fun at all the things that surround us as working actors. I jab at Ryan, and he jabs back at me.”
The story of the play, within a play, is that through misfortune, accident and/or money and emotional misunderstanding, the show’s eight-member cast has been reduced to just two actors. The show must go on, even if the two actors have to divvy up and play all the roles.
Written in the style of the penny dreadful, “The Mystery of Irma Vep” tells the story of Egyptologist and widower Lord Edgar Hillcrest, his staff and his second wife Lady Enid. Strange things happen around their home such as werewolves delivering the eggs and milk. Things are not pleasant for the Lady Enid. The maid hates her, her husband is frequently gone hunting, and the first wife, Irma Vep, still holds sway over the servants. Her portrait looks down upon the household from a shrine with a perpetual flame.
Miller’s characters include handyman Nicodemus, new wife Lady Enid, Alcazar an Egyptian guide and Pev Amri an Egyptian princess and mummy.
Milwaukee actor, and member of Actor’s Equity, Schabach takes on the roles of the solid British maid Jane Twisden, British aristocrat and Egyptologist Lord Edgar, a mysterious masked intruder and the first wife.
“We have to listen to the audience and be with them as much as they are with us,” Miller said.
“It’s really a gratuitous comedy and truly entertainment,” he said. Anytime you put a man in woman’s clothing, it’s funny. Our comedy heroes are Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello and The Three Stooges and this play fits their style of humor. Anybody who is dying to have a good laugh will love this play.”
Miller believes this production is the first to have a musical director as part of the cast.
Craig A. Miller is the new 6th Street Playhouse Artistic and Educational Director.
“There are so many sound effects,” Miller said. “It already had an intricate and complex sound design. I began to think what a musician would bring to the play.
“We didn’t have the budget for musical director Janis Wilson,” he said. “We had to scrounge around for the money. Janice is fantastic. We just pointed her at horror films. She listened to the film music and wrote her own version of the live musical underscoring and Foley sound effects paced to the story with things like a tongue-in-cheek version of ‘Peter and the Wolf.’
During “The Mystery of Irma Vep” productions on and off-Broadway, it became a coveted honor to be allowed to purchase backstage tickets and watch the play through the backstage costume changes. Miller said he has already had requests to do the same at 6th Street.
“There is a flurry of activity backstage,” Miller said. “Often, there is more going on backstage than in front of the curtain. Two dressers work with us on every costume change. One crew member is needed to just open and close doors throughout the play to ensure the multiple exits, entrances and costume changes go smoothly.”
The play, a homage and parody to nearly every classic horror film and a number of gothic horror novels, is concurrently deferential and outrageous with delectably creepy sets and props.
“Although it’s not necessary to be familiar with the originals from which the spoofs are derived, it does enrich the theater going experience,” Miller said. “But, even if you turned the volume off, the play would still reap belly laughs from the physical comedy alone.”
To catch all Ludlam’s insider byplay of uproarious over-the-top gothic references, which span hundreds of years of spine-tingling entertainment, the study guide would include:
Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” “Richard III,” “Hamlet” and “Othello”
Oscar Wilde’s “Picture of Dorian Gray”
Edgar Allan Poe’s “Raven”
The Brontë novels
Henrik Ibsen’s “Ghosts”
James Joyce “Ulysses”
1940 Hitchcock thriller “Rebecca”
1941 “Wolfman” with Lon Chaney
1931 “Dracula”
1932 “The Mummy”
1922 “Nosferatu” (the original vampire movie
1939 “The Hound of the Bakervilles”
1939 “Wuthering Heights”
1944 “Gaslight”
1944 “The Mummy’s Curse”
1960 “Psycho”
1972 “Deliverance”
2008 “Twilight”
Several B-movie thrillers
Of his new hometown Miller said, “Santa Rosa has a lot of character, a love of life and a nice community feel. Every night at the playhouse, it feels like the audience wants to enjoy themselves and is looking forward to the show. I think that the 6th Street Playhouse is poised to be a regional theatrical force for the entire Bay Area.”
“The Mystery of Irma Vep”
52 West 6th Street, Santa Rosa
Located in historic Railroad Square
www.6thStreetPlayhouse.com
(707) 523-4185
Now through June 26
8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays
8 p.m. Thursdays
2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays
TICKETS: $15 to $32
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