Capital University put on a production of “Zombies 101” from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2. in the Cabaret Theater.
“Zombies 101” is a unique combination of comedic entertainment incorporated with more serious life lessons and morals.
In order to create the script, Sharon Croft, director of “Zombies 101” and communications professor, pulled from multiple sources to tell the story.
Such sources include “All I Really Need to Know I Learned From Being a Zombie” by Jason Pizzarello, as well as three short story collections: “The Living Dead,” “A Quick Bite of Flesh” and “Tales from the Zombie Road.”
Each scene was composed of an individual story, and each story’s purpose was to provide a life lesson in a comedic fashion.
Some lessons included “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” “You never know what the day will bring you” and “There is no normal.”
“[One scene] is about mental health. She’s hearing zombies and thinks that there are zombies outside of her door and it’s kind of the same as anxiety and OCD,” Stage Manager Laura Wallace said. “It’s [the show] just a whole big metaphor of issues and problems. The zombies kind of portray it in a different way.”
A struggle the cast faced was a shorter timeline to put the production together than in the past. The department worked hard to put together a quality production with a week less than they’re used to.
However, along the way the cast had bonded and formed closer relationships. First-year student David Bui provided some highlights:
“There’s good chemistry with every single person. We all just get along so well; we all have our moments, but we help each other through those moments,” Bui said. “It’s also just a safe space. You can do something ‘stupid.’ I don’t know if anyone really thinks about it, people that haven’t done theater, but we just do so many stupid things that it pulls off at the end because that’s the whole point of theater.”
The production team and cast of “Zombies 101” hoped that the audience would not only be entertained by silly anecdotes and dance numbers, but also walk away differently than they were upon first entering the theater.
Wallace finds it important for people to “look at things from a different perspective. There might be hidden struggles in different places than you would normally see because they’re shown as something light hearted like a zombie, but it’s actually a more serious issue.”
The cast hopes that the audience will remember to “live life to your fullest because you only have one–unless you’re a zombie.”
