Tuesday, March 13, 2012

"Monster Man" with Richard Elfman Part 1


This story begins in Spring of 2010 when I performed for the first time at Sacred Fools Theater in a crazy, rockin' musical called "Forbidden Zone: Live In The 6th Dimension" or FZ6D for short. This musical was a stage adaptation of the cult movie "Forbidden Zone" produced and directed by Richard Elfman and starring his brother Danny Elfman. If you've never seen the movie, here is a scene with Danny & the character I portrayed, the "Princess:" Squeezit The Moocher
 
Artist, Jeret Ochi's depiction of me in FZ6D

I met Richard on a few occasions & I heard he was planning "Forbidden Zone 2" but there were no other details at the time. Then fast forward to August 2011. 
I was working the annual Sacred Fools Theater season opening fundraiser. The theme was Midsummer Nightmare or something. So my interpretation of the theme was to wear little blue shorts, a “What happened in Vegas?” tank top, pink knee-high socks, giant mismatched cloven feet I bought from the UCI costume shop a million years ago, a curly blue wig, pink butterfly clips, and blue wings on my back. I thought the night was going to be particularly boring because I was tucked away from all the action working the food room, but I was unexpectedly offered free whiskeys and it all went into a blurry haze from there. However, before I got too faded, I remember running into Richard Elfman. He took a look at me in my crazy outfit, with my emotions & thoughts leaping from one topic to another, and apparently thought I would be the perfect Princess Polly for a "Forbidden Zone 2" promo he was working on. He told me to email him before he left. Two days later, when I finally came out of my party fog, I received an email from him saying “Email me!!” So I did. 
Richard is going to be featured in the new SyFy show "Monster Man." It's basically a reality show about a special effects studio in Los Angeles.  He wanted to promote his next movie, "Forbidden Zone 2," with a music video of his new princess character, Princess Polly. We started with a meeting at his cool Beachwood home under the Hollywood sign where I also met with the amazing composer, Ego Plum. Ego then collaborated with both Richard and Richard’s brother Danny. A few weeks later I met with them again at the Beachwood home. This time would be the first of many when I was invited to wear a silly hat while I visited (a tradition at Richard's home). I chose a Peter Pan cap. The song was pretty fun. Some of the racier lyrics never ended up in the final product, but I think the final is probably the better choice to air on SyFy. After that I went home to learn the song. 
Sometime that next week we all met at Ego Plum’s studio in East LA. He has a really cute studio tucked back behind a residential house in a quiet neighborhood. Within 1 hour we had the song recorded. Bam!

Next time: Richard takes me to SOTA studios to get a life cast made of my head!

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