Liz Castaneda
Audio By Carbonatix
A musical called Death sounds like it would be a tribute to movies like Friday the 13th or Saw, especially since the latest one running at Pocket Sandwich Theatre is the last one in a trilogy. (Horror fans love series. There have been 12 Friday the 13th installments, 10 for Saw.)
Playwright Scott A. Eckert, the writer behind all three musicals, including his latest, Death The Musical III: Escape Room, says there’s no splatter zone where guests can expect to get covered in stage blood or even a healthy dose of violence.
“There’s a lot of humor in it, but the purpose of this one goes a little deeper,” Eckert says. “It’s more of a character study of these five women and how they deal with their lives.”
Death The Musical III: Escape Room premiered last weekend on Pocket Sandwich Theatre’s stage in downtown Carrollton and runs every Thursday – Sunday until Saturday, Sept. 23. It’s an interesting take on a genre of horror we thought we knew.
Most horror comedies that take a musical form, like Evil Dead: The Musical, based on director Sam Raimi’s iconic series of undead demons possessing the living, tend to focus on the unbelievable notion that anyone would take the time to turn something so crazy into a stage musical. Eckert’s latest Death musical turns its attention toward the people whose lives may be hanging in the balance and the things they must confront if they want to go on living.
“It ended up being not what I anticipated,” Eckert says. “I don’t want to give too much away. It’s campy and fun, but there are some twists and turns at the end. It does not go where you think it’s gonna go.”
The plot centers on five ex-sorority sisters, all of whom have names that start with “Ash” (Eckert swears he didn’t realize they share the same name as Ashley Williams from the Evil Dead series) who meet up after 20 years at one of those puzzling escape room experiences. An unnamed person known as The Caretaker looks after the place and “sort of sets everything up and in motion for the sorority ladies,” says actor Shane Hurst, who also starred in the first Death musical.
Eckert’s Death trilogy started 14 years ago at the old Pocket Sandwich Theatre location on Mockingbird Lane with an Agatha Christie-style story about a mysterious murder in which characters get bumped off Á la And Then There Were None. Death The Musical II based its story on tales from The Darwin Awards, the internet website that chronicles the really stupid ways that real people have taken themselves out of life’s gene pool.
The third Death musical was in the works at the old Mockingbird Lane space until the COVID outbreak put everything on hold, but Eckert says he wasn’t sure how it would pan out as he was writing it.
Shane Hurst, left, and Alexis Sparkles Belt star in Death The Musical III: Escape Room, now running at Pocket Sandwich Theatre in Carrollton.
Liz Castaneda
“I spent the first four months going down the wrong path and not liking it, and when it finally clicked, I went ‘Oh! It’s because I was trying to write the wrong thing,'” Eckert says. “It’s not about how many ways can we kill debs. Let’s do something a little different.”
A story about an escape room wouldn’t work without some fiendish puzzles that may or may not lead to peril, but Eckert says the crew have built some unique set pieces.
“There are hidden doors all through it,” he says. “When you look at the set, you’ll only see one door, but there are five different ways to get onto the set, and there’s a lot of various sneaking on, sneaking off and people seeming to appear out of nowhere.”
Going any deeper into Death The Musical III’s story would spoil some of the surprises Eckert worked into his script, but the playwright noted that the pasts of the five main characters may come back to haunt or even kill them.
“This one is the I Know What You Did Last Summer that’s rife with possibilities, that maybe is something I need to talk to my analyst about,” Eckert says. “I think it’s a way for me to deal with life or death without taking it too seriously.”
Even though all three of Eckert’s Death musicals are comedies at their cores, his latest is more emotional at the center of its blood-pumping heart.
“Unlike the other two, it also has some very touching moments and he really delves into the relationship between the characters a little bit more in this one,” Hurst says. “It really is essentially a comedy, and it really surprises a lot of people. My wife went up to him and said, ‘You’re supposed to make me laugh, not cry.'”
