Welcome to the new, improved and redesigned Katharsis Theater Company website. I will be blogging on this page throughout the rehearsal process for The Polish Play.  I’ll post reseach images, design drawings, photos from the reheasal hall, pieces of the script as well as my thoughts about the development of the show. I hope you’ll [...]

While Alfred Jarry borrowed many story elements from Macbeth for Ubu Roi, he changed the location of his play from Shakespeare’s Scotland to Poland. The title of Henry Wishcamper’s new play riffs on The Scottish Play—actors’ nickname for Macbeth (see The Curse of Macbeth)—and the setting of Ubu Roi.

Literally meaning ‘big puppet’, the term ‘Grand Guignol’ refers to any dramatic entertainment that deals with macabre subject matter and features over-the-top graphic violence. It is derived from Le Theatre du Grand Guignol, founded in the 1890s by Oscar Metenier. The staple of the Grand Guignol was the horror play, which inevitably featured eye-gouging, throat-slashing, [...]

Mashup \MASH-up\ n : 1. A digital recording that combines and synchronizes instrumental and vocal tracks from two or more songs, e.g., Destiny’s Child & Nirvana; Jay Z & the Beatles. 2. A website or web application that combines content from more than one source. 3. A play that combines content from more than one [...]