Interview with

Enrique Acosta

Producer of Spider Baby, The Musical

 

by Jose Ruiz

We often mention that one of the perks of this website is getting to speak to interesting people. We’ve spoken with some people of great prominence in theatre and some who are not so well known, but always we manage to discover that everyone has the same indefinable quality . . . a passion for self expression. One of the more unique persons we have met is Enrique Acosta, writer, actor, musician and dreamer. He has taken an obscure almost forgotten film, known only to a small cult following, and created a show that has been called – dark – shadowy, an acquired taste and similar adjectives. How this can also be a musical is something to ponder, but nevertheless we forged ahead to learn more about this unique project.

RP        I did some background research on the old Spider Baby film with Lon Chaney Jr. and some of the old actors. Is your show based on that old film by Jack Hill?

EA       Yes – it’s based on it and is very close to the original script. In fact Jack Hill gave us the original shooting script to work from.

RP        Really – that’s great. Has he seen the show as you mounted it?

EA       He has seen various incarnations – but he hasn’t had a chance to see the latest yet.

RP        So – your show keeps changing?

EA       It’s been changing as we go. We’ve been on tour so we’ve taken those lessons we learned and incorporated them into the show.

RP        I see. What is it that you would like the audience to come away with after they see Spider Baby, The Musical?

EA       It’s a little hard to explain. I’d like them to have the same experience I had when I saw the movie. The story itself is a little out there, but at the same time, when you get down to it, it’s a story about unconditional love.  However, it’s a little hard to see that, past the horror that’s going on. What interested me was the dichotomy of that. It’s putting the two things together and having them play off each other that makes it interesting. Instead of just being a comedy or just being a horror show or just being a musical.

RP        Did you write the music for it?

EA       I wrote all the music.

RP        So you’re also a musician?

EA       Yes

RP        Are you primarily a musician or an actor?

EA       Well, when I started this I was primarily a musician, singer – songwriter.

RP        Really?

EA       In fact when I first started this I honestly thought I was making a concept album.

RP        That’s a little different than what it is now?

EA       Yes – it just kind of turned into a musical.

RP        So your concept album is now a musical and it’s playing at the Lyric Hyperion. You’ve been there about four weeks already?

EA       Yes, we have.

RP        What kind of audience reaction have you had?

EA       The audiences have – well, they’ve been blow away!

RP        Really

EA       We’ve been pretty good about trying to find people who would be into this kind of show. This is not a musical for everyone. This is not the type of musical that might appeal to people who like Wicked or Legally Blonde. One fan actually said that is a musical for people who hate musicals

RP        That’s a strange compliment. So if I like The Sound of Music, this is not for me, right?

EA       Well, it might be. I actually happen to love The Sound of Music.

RP        I think so too. It’s a great story.

EA       But if that’s all you’re into you may not like it. This appeals to people who like things like Hedwig and the Angry Inch or Repo the Genetic Opera or the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

RP        I’ve noticed on your promos there is the tag “Seductive Innocence of Lolita”. Is there a lot of sexuality or sex implied in this play?

EA       The show itself has scenes of strong sexual content and graphic violence.

RP        Really? That’s great!

EA       As we tell people, there’s sex, there’s violence, there’s sexy violence and violent sex.

RP        And all that’s in the play?

EA       Yes – all of it.

RP        You said earlier that you had wanted to make a concept album. What was it about the original Jack Hill film that inspired you to get involved with this project?

EA       Well, there’s this character known as the caretaker – called Bruno. He’s the caretaker of the two children and it’s played by Lon Chaney Jr. It was one of the last films he ever made. After some really terrible things have happened, he talks to them about how he had sacrificed his life to take care of them – because he had promised this to their dead father. The subtext is that he loved them as if they were his children and it was this idea  that no matter what you do, someone will love you that kind of struck with me

I’ll be honest, when I first went to see the film I thought it was going to be this crappy little B movie, a piece of junk that I would laugh at and move on from there. But Lon Chaney Jr. did an amazing job with the character. I had seen some of his other films and was never all that impressed, but he was actually brilliant in this film. He did an absolutely incredible acting job and he had me in tears, literally. What started the whole thing was that scene, and I started to write a song based on that.

RP        Wow – that’s really something. It really got to you.

EA       Yeah, it was a couple of weeks later that I started to write a song about it and the idea just struck with me

      After I wrote a few more songs, my wife said – “You know you’re making a musical, don’t you?”

RP        You didn’t know it at the time, but your wife did, right?

EA       Yeah – my wife saw it was a musical right away.

EA       I play guitar and I sing.

RP        In the website I saw a photo of you singing doing some sort of sound track. Do you sing in the play?

EA       Yes. I took over the role of Bruno during our San Francisco run.

RP        And you’re doing it in LA also?

EA       Yes- I do the role in LA. From a producer’s point of view that’s one less person I have to pay.

RP        Absolutely – that makes sense. You were so impressed with Lon Chaney Jr. in the role, how much of that do you bring to the role?

EA       I try to go to the root of the character rather than do an imitation of Chaney. He did a great job, but if all I’m doing is copying what he did, then that’s not really acting.

RP        Right. The main girl in the show, what’s her name again?

EA       The character’s name is Virginia and the actress is Bianca Gisselle.

RP        How did you select the actors for these characters?

EA       Well, we put out an audition notice and they all came in and sang for us and we had a chance to meet them. We got very lucky with the people we got – they are insanely talented.

RP        Besides the singing, was there any personality trait that you were looking for? Some little quirk or something

EA       Well, the role of Virginia is important. She is the titular character and the basic idea  is that the characters are losing control of their impulses. This is essentially a difficult character to play because she has the mind of an eight year old but the body of a seventeen year old.  Not only do you have to play with the idea  that every thought she has she is going to act on, because she doesn’t have those filters that everyone has built up over the years. We also have to play with the idea that she’s experiencing certain things physically that she really can’t vocalize. She doesn’t have words for them. No one has ever told her about the changes that her body would be going through. And basically, she’s coming up against that mating instinct.

RP        And doesn’t understand it.

EA       Doesn’t understand it at all. It would be easy for an actress to go up there and act crazy and swing a knife around. But what Bianca does is she adds like a sense of danger to her character, but at the same time she’s also trying to figure stuff out. She doesn’t understand when she’s done something bad or when she does something that anyone would ever be mad at her for.

RP        You know, when you were saying that I just flashed on the character of Lenny in of Mice And Men. He did things without understanding they were wrong.

EA       Very similar. There are a lot of similarities. She does a lot of bad things, but she doesn’t mean to, no more than Lenny meant to do them. It’s just that they did the very first thing that came to their mind and they can’t stop themselves.

RP        That sounds as if the role requires somebody that has some real acting chops.

EA       She is fantastic in the role. Plus, she has this amazing voice. One of the other things we looked for is that we didn’t want people who sounded like Broadway singers. The people we have can pull out the rock vocals really well. She actually has her own album out, and she’s also a singer songwriter.

RP        And of course, there’ll be copies available for sale at the lobby of the theatre?

EA       O h yes!

RP        I’ve been to the Lyric Hyperion several times. It’s a fairly small house.

EA       Yes - in fact, we’ve even made it smaller.

RP        You’re kidding. Really?

EA       We’ve turned the seats around so all the seats facing the right way so instead of 90 seats or so we’re doing it with about 60.

RP        And that was a deliberate choice by you?

EA       Well there are certain things you have to do in a horror show. Horror and comedy are both based on surprise, so in order for that surprise to happen we had to hide things from the audience.

RP        So by turning the seats sideways you can hide things better from the audience?

EA       Before, what they had was a three quarter thrust – they had seats on three sides of the stage. Now the audience is all facing one way so it’s easier to sneak up on them.

RP        Is there a lot of sneaking up?

EA       Like I said, in horror or comedy the whole idea is that you can’t see it coming, so there are things we can hide behind the set better this way.

RP        Sounds fascinating. You conceived the show as it is now, right the music, the direction- everything else?

EA       Well, when I took over the role of Bruno I realized I no longer had the perspective to direct, so I handed the directing duties to my wife.

RP        So it’s still kind of in the family.

EA       We have been talking about the show for years so she understands the show and understands what it should be.

JE This show is scheduled to run through December 5. Are you taking it out on the road after that?

EA       Actually, this is the tail end. We’ve been on the road for about two years now.

RP        Where have you played before?

EA       We played in San Francisco, Toronto, some smaller markets like Bakersfield, Tehachapi, Fresno.

RP        So do you have a new project after this – are you going to take a break?

EA       Yeah- pay back my credit cards (laughing)

RP        Right – I know about that.

EA       Under the best of circumstances it’s difficult to get people to pay for your show, so we’ve been paying for the whole thing ourselves.

RP        Oh my gosh!

EA       I know. If I wasn’t broke by now, I’d probably keep on going with the show.

RP        So are you saying you’re going to get a real job now?

EA       Well I do have job which I’ve been using to help pay this thing off, but we need to take some time to pay off and maybe I can take this opportunity to get some writing done.

RP        It sounds like this is a real labor of love.

EA       It has been. It’s pretty much been my life and my obsession for the past four or five years.

RP        And your wife has gone along with you. Is she an actress also?

EA       Well, she has a theatre background – she understands this and has been very supportive.

RP        So when you were a kid, did you always want to do this type of thing?

EA       When I was kid I wanted to be Captain America.

RP        Well, that’s pretty close.

EA       Yeah (laughing). I did theatre as a kid – I moved away from theatre for a while and was in some rock bands, I did a solo act for awhile and getting back into theatre was sort of an accident.

RP        Really – how did it happen?

EA       Well, after I had written the music for this show and I went looking for someone to direct it – someone to stage it and it got down to the point where no one was available. So I thought - if I can’t get anyone who else is going to do it? So I ended up just doing it myself.

RP        That’s very ambitious.

EA       Someone told me once that no one is going to love your project as much as you do. No one is going to understand like you do – so I went for it.

RP        So now that you’re in the second year, are you satisfied with the results?

EA       I am more than pleased. This is an amazing cast. I’ve always been enamored of the story, I’ve re-written the music since we began and made it better, we have an amazing band, the theatre has been fantastic and the result is a fantastic show. I hope you come out and see it.

RP        I’ll certainly be seeing it this week-end. You are playing this week end?

EA       Yes – we have shows Friday and Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 7 pm.

RP        Great – We’ll see you then!

So we closed our interview with a better idea of who Enrique Acosta is. He sounds like a real nice guy – not at all the type of person who would envision putting up a show that has violence, sex, blood and all the other horrible things that are implied. But then, creativity takes on all kinds of outlets and no matter what atrocities take place on stage, people can be gentle souls off stage. Guess that’s why they call it “acting”.

Spider Baby The Musical is at the Lyric Hyperion Theatre through December 5, 2010.

Click here for Spider Baby the Musical website and information.

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