Joe R. Lansdale’s By Bizarre Hands at the Portfringe Theater Festival
A theatrical performance of Joe R. Lansdale’s By Bizarre Hands will be showing at the STOREFRONT THEATER – PORTLAND STAGE COMPANY as part of the Portfringe Festival which runs from June 18th to the 26th. The play will be performed TWICE: at 10:45PM on Tuesday, June 21st and at 7:15PM on Sunday, June 26th. More information on this event can be found at https://www.portfringe.com.
Lansdale, a winner of umpteen awards, is known for his sharp, wise-cracking dialogue in oftentimes dark, gritty and often brutally violent novels. His more popular works include Bubba HoTep, Cold in July, The Bottoms and the Hap and Leonard Series.
The play will be headlined by Damian Maffei, who previously worked with Lansdale on the feature film adaption of the author’s original work Christmas with the Dead. Christmas with the Dead is currently on sale through Amazon.com.
“I was looking for a temporary home for By Bizarre Hands and was directed to Portfringe which had just began accepting submissions for their 2016 festival. I figured that the weird and quirky city of Portland, Maine was as good a bet as any to unleash the nasty piece that is BBH,” Maffei explains how this project came to life. “I began looking for a director who would feel comfortable diving into this material and take charge of the production, and tracked down Corey Norman, whose film work I had been familiar with.”
Norman, the play’s director, had this to say about the production. “Having been a film director for the past few years, theater was the furthest thing from my mind. But when I was presented with Lansdale’s script for By Bizarre Hands, I knew I had to direct it. It’s dirty, gritty and just plain wrong… And that’s what I love about it.”
Corey Norman recently received the Horror Society Best Director Award for 2016. His previous credits include The Hanover House, The Invoking 2 and Suffer the Little Children.
