MANUAL CINEMA CONJURES ‘FRANKENSTEIN’

Chicago’s renowned multimedia theater company Manual Cinema brings its unforgettable take on the classic story of Frankenstein to OZ Arts Nashville with four highly-anticipated performances Oct. 24-26, 2019, just in time for Halloween.

This Nashville engagement marks the first stop on the production’s US tour after critically acclaimed performances in Chicago, New York, and Edinburgh. Stitching together Frankenstein with brilliant author Mary Shelley’s own biography, Manual Cinema utilizes a spellbinding chamber orchestra, handmade shadow puppetry, and cinematic techniques to conjure a living, breathing film performance before the audience’s eyes.

“Endlessly imaginative and exquisitely beautiful” – The New Yorker

“this Chicago troupe is conjuring phantasms to die for…” – Ben Brantley, The New York Times

“Manual Cinema will transform our creative warehouse into a theatrical soundstage, inviting us to experience the story of Frankenstein in a completely fresh way,” says OZ Arts Artistic Director Mark Murphy. “With breathtaking stagecraft, the production combines elements of theater and live film to draw haunting parallels between Mary Shelley’s life and those of her iconic creations. It is a perfectly spooky Halloween centerpiece for theater-goers, cinema fans, and bibliophiles alike.”

Manual Cinema is a Chicago-based performance collective, design studio, and film/video production company founded in 2010 by Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace, Ben Kauffman, Julia Miller, and Kyle Vegter. Using vintage overhead projectors, multiple screens, puppets, actors, live feed cameras, multi-channel sound design, and a live music ensemble, Manual Cinema transforms the experience of attending the cinema by imbuing it with immediacy, ingenuity, and theatricality.

In Frankenstein, Manual Cinema presents love, loss and creation in stories of Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein, and his Monster to expose how the forces of family, community, and education shape personhood—or destroy it by their absence.

Tickets to Frankenstein at OZ Arts Nashville, Oct. 24-26, start at $25 and are on sale now at www.ozartsnashville.org. For more information about Manual Cinema, visit: http://manualcinema.com. CLICK HERE for more theatre coverage!

For more Halloween-themed fun, mark your calendars for Fable Cry’s Festival of Ghouls coming to OZ Arts on Nov. 2, 2019. Put on a costume and bring your ghoulish best to this immersive Halloween party and over-the-top cabaret created by Nashville-based rock wonders Fable Cry. The local legends enlist the talents of artists from the worlds of burlesque, cabaret, spectacle, and the visual arts to conjure an unpredictable Halloween extravaganza.