Shelbyville Screams……………..THIS WEEKEND.
With great anticipation, much planning and generally goolish activities, Shelbyville Screams will be coming to the Strand. This is the brainchild of Strand board member Joey G. It includes zombies, zombies and more zombies. You will also see classic horror films, ghost investigations, a film festival and even a children’s play! The weekend will be a smash hit at the Strand as well as the Skyline Drive-In. It all starts with a Zombie Walk on Friday night.
The Zombie walk starts at the Porter Center and finishes at the Strand. (There are people all across the country who read this. The next little discussion is very Shelbyville, you’ll know what we mean.) Local observer Kris Meltzer mentioned to the Strand that the Zombie walk is quite appropriate. His rationale is that behind the Porter Center is an empty field that used to be filled with apartments and homes. These were all purchased and razed because the ground was deemed contaminated from actions decades ago. Here’s the Shelbyville part. What is next to that land? If you guess the old City Cemetery, ding ding ding, you are correct! What is the recipe for Zombies: Toxic waste and dead people. According to Mr. Meltzer it’s just like shopping at Mickey’s…you have everything you need. So when you walk with the zombies on Friday night take a close look, those might NOT be costumes.
The paranormal hunters gather at the Strand late Friday night for an overnight visit to hunt for any ominous activity. The “reveal” of the findings will be on Sunday afternoon. Several people are looking forward to this. If you think the Strand is haunted this is your chance to find out. We can tell you that several performers have sung haunting melodies, but we don’t think that is what they hope to find.
The film festival is on Saturday morning. These are shorts that have been submitted from people near and far. The closest submission appears to be from Miss Jill’s School of Dance just out our front door. We wonder if their zombies have pon poms and glitter? We know that Strand friend Tom B. from the Italian Zombie Movie fame has also submitted a masterpiece. Come and find out.
Saturday night is your chance to see a classic on the big screen. Dawn of the Dead, the 1978 George A. Romero classic, will show at 7:00pm. This is an opportunity to see this film in a theatre and even while sitting in the balcony. The Strand looks forward to this presentation. (warning, tech talk ahead). Things like this are not as easy as they seem. The problem with showing this movie is that the owner of the film was hard to locate. We cannot just show a movie, we have to pay the rights and royalties for this film. It took quite the effort to track this down. Board member Gary N. is in charge of all our movie booking. He contacted our normal agent. They at first thought they could secure the rights, but then informed us they couldn’t. We engaged the help of Joey G. and his booking service for the Skyline Drive-In. His agent worked diligently on our behalf and located the owner. Gary then contacted that group out of New York City and found the details. After getting a commitment of the showing, the Strand then sent a check to cover the advance cost of the film. We then had to sign contracts and give proof of the version of the film we were showing. They only license one version. With all that done, we received the countersigned contact this week. We are good to go for Dawn of the Dead. It was quite a job. Thank you to Gary N, Megan F. at our distributor. Joey G. and Matt at Indiana Booking for helping us jump through these hoops. Thank you to the MKR Marketing Group, owner of the film, for helping us on such short notice.
Sunday we will have the children’s play “Swamp Zombie Pirates” live on stage directed by Lora Norris. This is going to be fun. This is the third theatrical production done at the Strand in October! It is nice to have so many actors using our stage. Bring the kids and grandkids for this enjoyable production.
The Strand is transitioning from its summer mode to its winter mode. Our volunteers have been checking door seals, replacing filters and testing our heating equipment. This year our furnaces turn 57 years old. We want to keep them very happy this season. The AC units (which aren’t spring chickens either) are taking a needed rest. Those units did a great job cooling our theatre during a very hot and busy summer. The Strand spent almost $10,000 in cooling costs alone this summer. We are very fortunate to have wonderful users and great supporters of the theatre. We have been able to navigate through this financial spike without running out of funds. Lets hope for a very snowy, but very mild winter. The type that looks nice but doesn’t take a lot of heat.
Thank you for your support. We are grateful for all the encouragement and participation in the Strand project. See you at the Strand!