La Commedia Del Sangue: Vampyr Theatre - Performance History

Performance History

The Le Bar Bat performances were directed by Rosalie Traina, who had commissioned Sokol to write "The Summer After," a play about San Francisco in 1968. Among the original cast were Troy Acree, Mario Giacalone, Rosalie Traina, Lori Tomlinson, Tony Sokol, Shaunte Shayde, Sasha Graham, Jay Collagen and Jay Cavadi. Vampyr Theatre performed Sokol's scripts "The Auction," directed by Rosalie Traina, and "One of Us" directed by Sokol. Special effects were done by Chris Davis and Rick Crane. Original music was written and performed by the troupe's musical counterpart, Vampyr Theatre, which consisted of composers/musicians Bob Sushko, Ted Dailey and Tony Sokol.

La Commedia del Sangue was the topic of a two-part interview on Hispanic New York on WORK-AM during the Le Bar Bat run.

A group of interviewees who gathered for the Le Bar Bat shows would create the "vampire access line," a club that assembled information on vampire happenings around the city. The club began throwing its own vampire events and would eventually be taken over by prosthetic fang specialist Father Todd and become Sabretooth, the premier booking agent the city's vampire community.

The troupe moved to Zone DK, a weekly underground event of dark performances at the S&M club Paddles to perform "To Avenge, Divine" directed by Kurt Anthony. Added to the cast at this time were Justine Lambert and Jim Dowd. Rick Crane and Adam Barnick, who remained with the show until 1995, created special effects.

Vampyr Theatre revamped the first few plays and added Sokol's scripts "The Flesh, the Fantasy and the Fury" and "Welcome Home" and the troupe moved to Cafe Arielle, under the direction of Tony Sokol. At this point Mario Giacalone rejoined the cast and directed new plays at the troupe's new venue, Don't Tell Mama, where Sokol penned new scripts, among them "Blood Is Thicker than Water," which was also performed at Planet Rock Pub in Newark, N.J. Among the cast members at this time were Ed Lingan, Jennifer Coldwell, Jenice Malecki, Adam Weinberg and Greta Watson. Added to the special effects crew was makeup artist, Tyler Wolk.

During the Cafe Arielle run, Lori Tomlinson and Sasha Graham created a production company, New Moon Productions, and mounted "No Exit." Among the cast were several La Commedia del Sangue members, including Jim Dowd. Incidental music was written by Sokol.

For "Blood Is thicker Than Water," "One of Us" and "More Than You Can Chew," La Commedia del Sangue moved to Creative Place Theater and the directorial duties were taken over by Troy Acree, who would direct the bulk of the remaining plays. Shaunte Shayde and Sokol directed two club performances. Among the cast members during these performances were Tracy Dillon, Mark Lang, Caroline Surace, Noelle Nesgoda, Guadalupe Yepes and Nicole Smokler.

During the run of "More Than You Can Chew," Sokol appeared on the The Joan Rivers Show, along with horror movie critic, David Skal and a group of vampires from Chicago. This was followed by "Let Us Prey," which opened at Creative Place Theater in November 1993", moved to Theatre 22 and ran there until March 1994(10). By this time it caught the attention of Michael Musto, who reviewed it for the Daily News on Jan. 28, 1994, who wrote "Every bit as weird as it sounds, "Prey"—written by horror/comedy scribe TONY SOKOL for the troupe La Commedia Del Sangue—presents its eerie rituals with conviction, unabashedly lacing the vampires' ruthless survival tactics with more of a raw sexuality than the misty romanticism they're usually diluted by."" Among the cast at this time were Steve Lynch, Karie Ehrlich, Esther Weerd, Mark Lang, Tina Wu, Dianne Acciavati, Dawn Marchan, Shaunte Shayde, Jericho De'Angelo, Roslyn, Rick Crane, Lauren Bailey, Tony Sokol, Adam Barnick, Troy Acree, Marcia Canestrano, Sophia Valaikas and vampire musician Jericho D'Angelo.

During the run of "Let Us Prey," Troy Acree and Dawn Marshan appeared on the Joe Franklin Radio Show.

In 1994 the troupe moved back to clubs for the show "Bite Me," performed at The Bat Cave at Downtime.

In October 1994, the troupe found themselves at Chapter 3 Theatre for the script "Dark Night of the Soul."

Magician Tony Scarpa joined the cast and crew as performer and special effects director for "Dances from a Shallow Grave" which ran at Nada Theatre during 1995. 1995 also saw the play Let Us Prey published by Fuck That Weak Shit Press. The cast included Mia Reeves, Andrea Ruth, Electra Frank, Fred Backus, Pat Dias, Angel Hughes and Karen Dillon.

In 1996 a portion of the cast performed "20 Bucks and a Bottle of Wine" - an improvisational piece based on the cast's antagonism of the press directed by Shaunte Shayde at The Bat Cave. During that year, director Troy Acree mounted his adaptation of Faust, which featured special effects by Rick Crane and a cameo appearance by Sokol as John Lennon. Also during 1996, Sokol produced an evening of spousal murder comedies, "How to Skip Alimony Through Voluntary Manslaughter." These along with his plays "Everybody ODs" and "Dinner with Socrates" were directed by Troy Acree, La Commedia del Sangue member Jenice Malecki and Sokol and the cast featured several actors from La Commedia del Sangue. Portions of this show were shown on the public-access television cable TV show, Drama with Miss Kitty, along with interviews with the cast. The show did well, despite its 1 a.m. starting time. Miss Kitty declared the troupe "king of underground theater." Troy Acree, Shaunte Shayde and Sokol also appeared numerous times on the Manhattan public-access shows, including Drama With Miss Kitty, Vampires and Vampyr Lounge.

The last play performed by La Commedia del Sangue was Sokol's Just Us Served at The Interlude Theater during 1997. Sokol did a BBC-Radio Broadcast on Halloween 1997. The cast included Kristin Ingram, Sam Mercer, David Purves, Mary Sulley, Ana de Luna, Rachel Scott, Sara Moon, Jessica Turner, Michael Maloney and Kim Dullahan.