Sorority Girls Slumber Party Massacre:
The History Of The Musical
The following article is an excerpt from M. Potter’s unpublished, unauthorized biography of Rubbed Raw Productions (Angus Kohm’s theatre company). Potter was still working on it at the time of her infamous accidental drowning in a toilet. Rubbed Raw has asked anguskohm.com to make it clear that there is no truth to the rumour that Potter was working on a new and improved “Severed Head In The Toilet Bowl” effect when... well, no one is quite sure what actually happened... but... alas, her book was never completed.
Angus Kohm first started talking about doing a 'slasher musical' before the original 1994 production of Bad Girls Jailhouse (his first musical) had even taken place. He'd been a fan of the genre ever since seeing Halloween on television when he was ten years old. As he grew older, he learned to appreciate the campy qualities of some of the more outrageously exploitative entries like Slumber Party Massacre (1, 2 and 3), Sorority House Massacre (1 and 2), The House On Sorority Row, and Hell Night. By the time he became interested in writing a musical, these films seemed to provide the perfect subject matter.
"Even before I knew that I was ever going to write a musical, I had an idea for a scene that I wanted to do," says Kohm. "It was sometime in the eighties, when Freddy Krueger was gaining popularity in the Nightmare On Elm Street series. I found it kind of disturbing that he was turning into a wise-cracking serial killer - a guy who told jokes as he was murdering people. I wanted to illustrate the absurdity of this by doing a scene where the killer performs a complete song and dance number before trying to murder someone. I guess it was the first premonition of what I would end up doing one day."
But it took a little longer to get there than Kohm might have intended. As he was writing Bad Girls Jailhouse, he realized that he wanted the 'slasher musical' to be his next project. He fully intended to begin working on it in the fall of 1994, but other things kept getting in the way. He worked as a crew member on several short films and music videos, and co-produced a evening of six short plays called Two Men, A Woman, and A Desk, of which two of the plays were his. He was also part of a group of playwrights who attempted to found a new theatre space in Winnipeg. It was intended to make independent production more viable for everyone, but by the spring of 1995 they had to admit defeat. The first production in the new space (had it been completed) was to have been a double bill of one of Kohm's earliest plays (The Rape of My Bad Body) and Canadian Steel by Ian Ross. Kohm had been co-producing the show with fellow playwright Gary Jarvis, and the two finally managed to put it on in another theatre space in April.
"I never forgot about the slasher musical, even though I was too busy to start working on it," admits Kohm. "But then something unexpected happened. I started to feel like I wasn't finished with my first musical. I kept getting the strongest urge to go back and add in some more material. There were a couple of numbers I had always intended to have in the show, but had never gotten around to finishing. I decided to put the slasher musical on hold and do that."
What resulted was Bad Girls Jailhouse: UNCUT, a show which Kohm took on the road in the summer of 1996. For details click here.
In the fall of 1996, Kohm decided that the time had finally come to start working on his second musical. He wanted to produce a second, even larger fringe festival tour in the summer of 1997. The long delayed 'slasher musical' was the first idea to come to his mind, but surprisingly enough he also gave serious consideration to a couple of other, newer ideas (I could elaborate on them, but Kohm is very secretive about his scripts in development, and having studied slasher films for so long, I’m afraid that he might crack up and re-stage one of the particularly disgusting scenes involving a pitchfork and my torso... so my lips will remain sealed on the subject). It wasn't until December that he made the final decision - the 'slasher musical' was a go. He decided on a title very quickly; Sorority Girls Slumber Party Massacre: the musical, which paid homage to the campy, exploitative films that he had enjoyed so much over the years.
Then he went to work.
"For the next four months, I was not only working full time as a producer making sure that the tour was going to happen," Kohm remembers, "I was also spending every spare minute I had writing the script and the music. It was the tightest schedule I've ever worked under. By the time we were rehearsing the show in May, a sixteen hour workday was a light one."
The show opened in Manotick, Ontario (just outside of Ottawa) on June 4, 1997. There were two - yes, TWO - performances that day, which meant that if the show flopped at its opening there were be no time to make any changes before the second performance. It did not flop. The show went off without a hitch and the audience loved it. In fact, one member of the crowd made a point of approaching Kohm and telling him that it was best thing he had seen all day. That person turned out to be Paul Gessell, a reviewer for The Ottawa Citizen. For details click here.
"That's when I knew that everything was going to be okay," says Kohm. "Up until that moment, I had no idea how people were going to react. Part of me was expecting a disaster. But after opening with such a bang I was able to relax a little."
Sorority Girls went on to become one of the most popular shows at the Manotick festival, breaking box office records in all of the traditionally poorly attended time slots (really early and really late on weekdays). It also won a Jester Award (determined by audience ballot) for Best Musical.
From there the show went to Montreal, where it quickly received very positive word of mouth,
audience Buzz (short reviews posted on the walls of the Beer Tent), and extremely good reviews in several publications. The second half of the of the show's run was completely sold out. The cast was invited to perform at a special 20th anniversary screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but unfortunately a conflict of schedules would not permit them.
The third stop on the tour was Toronto, where Kohm and company more than doubled the attendance of the previous year (when Bad Girls Jailhouse was performed). Many fans of Bad Girls came out to see Sorority Girls and then announced that they would be looking forward to next year's show (whatever it may be). At least one local producer expressed interest in remounting Sorority Girls sometime in the future. And there was yet another very admiring review, this time in The Eye weekly.
Winnipeg was by far the most successful stop on the tour. Sorority Girls sold out every single performance in The MTC Warehouse, which is a three-hundred seat venue. The advance tickets were flying off of the shelves, and lineups at the theatre were forming as much as two hours before the start of the show. One volunteer claimed that people started trying to buy tickets from him at noon, when the actual performance wasn't until the evening. Both major newspapers gave the show five stars (the highest rating), and the Free Press printed an article about Kohm and how the rest of the tour had been going so far. There was talk of holding the show over, but with fifty-three light cues and thirty-eight sound cues, Kohm decided that they couldn't afford to miss their technical rehearsal in Saskatoon.
And from there the success continued. The Saskatoon performances were consistently well attended, but a record-breaking heat wave (and a non air conditioned venue) worked against them to some degree, and the show never quite sold out. Attendance was still higher than it had been in 1996, however, as many of the old fans brought some new ones with them.
Edmonton was by far the most competitive of the festivals. The group had to work hard to make sure that they didn't get lost among the 120 or so other groups. They didn't. Attendance was very high (even in unpopular time slots), and a couple of the shows sold out. In the end, Edmonton scored the second highest attendance for Sorority Girls (the first being Winnipeg, of course). Not bad at all, for a first time appearance.
Just like in the case of Bad Girls, there has been much interest in Sorority Girls since the tour ended. Productions have been proposed for places as far away as Nanaimo, B.C. and New York. There has been some talk of turning it into a film. There is a soundtrack planned, and a possible publishing deal. So far, most of this is still in limbo. But with a show as popular as Sorority Girls, how long can it be before all of theses things start to happen?
Hopefully, not too long at all...