GODS & MONSTERS
Based on the novel by Christopher Bram
Adapted for the stage by Thomas Mullen
Directed by Paul Oakley Stovall
PRESENTED BY FRAME OF REFERENCE PRODUCTIONS IN ASSOCIATION WITH the WOODEL inspiration fund
May 2024. Theater Wit, Chicago
The Story
Gods & Monsters is based on the novel by Christopher Bram, which became a major motion picture and won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay by Bill Condon.
This newly imagined stage production combines the issues of race and sexuality into it’s original storyline with a deeper focus on what it means to be an outsider
from alternating viewpoints.
Former Hollywood film director best known for Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, and Show Boat, James Whale is now retired and slowly facing dementia. His caring housekeeper, quietly disapproves of Whale's faceless, nameless parade of young gay lovers, but when the director takes an interest in new gardener and former Marine, it seems to be for something more than his usual casual conquest.
Gods & Monsters to Get Stage Adaptation Via Chicago's Theatre Wit
Paul Oakley Stovall and Tom Mullen are bringing a version of Frankenstein screen director James Whale to the stage that puts more focus on race.
BY LOGAN CULWELL-BLOCK
DECEMBER 11, 2023
Chicago's Book & Lyrics Theatricals will premiere a new stage adaptation of Gods and Monsters, based on Christopher Bram's 1995 novel Father of Frankenstein and its 1998 screen version. The work will play a limited run beginning on May 9, 2024
The project is a collaboration between writer-actor Paul Oakley Stovall and director Tom Mullen. In a role reversal, Stovall will direct the premiere while Mullen is writing the script. The mostly fictionalized story centers on the final days of real-life film director James Whale, noted for his work on the classic horror films Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, along with the first full-screen adaptation of the Broadway musical Show Boat. The work tracks the director as his health is failing while simultaneously falling for a young landscaper, Clayton Boone (Whale was openly gay throughout his career, a trailblazer ahead of his time).
Photography Brandon Dahlquist
In Mullen's take, the fictional Boone will become a Black man, a choice inspired by Mullen's research into Whale's Show Boat and its casting of Black activist Paul Robeson as Joe. Going back to Bram's novel after changes were made for the 1998 film version, Mullen's take will also depict Whale's housekeeper as a Mexican immigrant, part of a larger goal to bring race to the center of the story while exploring how Whale's homosexuality helped to unlock the then-uncommon empathy for outsiders and the oppressed that is present in his screen work. The changes have been approved by Bram, who says in a statement that "[m]y story is in excellent hands."
"The title Gods and Monsters almost implies a tale of good and evil, of a benevolent force versus a destructive one," says Stovall in a statement. "But what draws me to this story is that it’s all about the places in between. It’s about what’s just under the surface in all of us and how people who can seem so different are always so very similar because we are all made of the same star stuff. We live in the same world and we want the same things."
CAST
Rashun Carter
Clayton Boone
Ethan Check
Edmund Kay & Others
Mayra Echevarría
Maria Ramirez Understudy
Scott Westerman
James Whale
Michael Stejskal
David Lewis & Others
Joshua David Thomas
Clayton Boone Understudy
Mitchell Fain*
James Whale Understudy
Doreen Calderon*
Maria Ramirez
Rick Adams
David Lewis & Others Understudy
Ryan Christopherson
Edmund Kay & Others Understudy
*Denotes member of Actors Equity Association
CREATIVE TEAM
Writer
Tom Mullen
Director
Paul Oakley Stovall
Composer
Michael Sobie
Fight & Intimacy Director
Charlie Baker
Scenic Design
Ben Lipinski
Production Manager
Kim Whitfield
AEA Production
Stage Manager
Matthew Silar*
Sound Design
Andre Pluess & Joe Court
Lighting Design
Levi Wilkins
Projection Design
Mike Tutaj
Costume Design
Marquecia Jordan
Prop Design
Ellen Markus
Associate Director
Mitchell Fain
Assistant Director
Evan Ozer
Marketing &
Social Media
Andrea Beschel
General Management
& Casting Director
Christopher Pazdernik
Photography
Brandon Dahlquist
Box Office Manager
Josh Nordmark
Press Representative
Jeffrey Ward
*Denotes member of Actors Equity Association
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