Michael Shaw Fisher, the creator of last year's hit musical Doomsday Cabaret, returns to the Hollywood Fringe Festival with the musical comedy Exorcistic: The Rock Parody Experiment.
Exorcistic began as a much different concept (the story of a demonically possessed lounge singer), but after the project gained the interest and input of Exorcist author William Peter Blatty (who was involved in a straight Exorcist play at the time), it soon escalated into a more direct parody of Blatty's story. Fisher says it's now about a highbrow but failing theatre company trying to capitalize on the 40th anniversary of The Exorcist with a pretentious rock musical experiment.
Unlike past musical parodies of Evil Dead, Re-Animator and Silence of the Lambs, Fisher and company are taking a more “meta” approach: “We watch the show go from being a staged reading to the Hollywood fringe, to becoming a huge hit,” he told Broadwayworld.com, “all while the company is summoning dark forces they don't understand.”
Fisher also reported that he may be collaborating with Blatty on a future musical based on the author's Demons Five, Exorcists Nothing.
The Hollywood Fringe Festival is an open platform for cutting-edge artists, whose work is presented with no curators or censorship, and Exorcistic is one of the first shows this year, beginning its run on June 8th (with a preview show on the 6th) and playing several dates through the month. Visit their Facebook page for details!