Original Run Dates: October 28-31, 2010
Location: Hedbeck Community Theater, Indianapolis, IN
Run Time: approx. 60 minutes

Thankfully, I am Facebook friends with fellow fine-arts guy Brian Noffke, otherwise I would have never known that he was directing a live-stage version of “Night of the Living Dead” here in Indianapolis, nor would I have seen his post calling for zombie extras to shamble around during the performances October 28-31, 2010.

Not only was Brian kind enough to let me join his talented cast on stage at the Hedbeck Community Theater, home of Footlite Musicals, for the midnight Halloween show, he let me see the show as an audience member during the 8pm Halloween show so I could objectively review it for The G.O.R.E. Score. I’ll talk briefly about my experience as a Zombie Extra here, but my main focus in this review is the show itself!

Overall, the experience was a highly-entertaining one. There’s a significant difference between reading about a zombie in a book or seeing one on a TV screen versus having one physically shamble right by you. The production was set up so that the audience was on the stage with the cast and set, with a center aisle running down the middle of the audience seating and the aisle extended perpendicularly all the way along the front of the stage in both directions as well; throughout the show, undead in various costumes and stages of decomposition roamed the aisles, sometimes physically brushing against audience members who were (un)fortunate enough to sit on the end of their row.