Midsummer Scream 2024 Interview: Zombie Joe of Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre

An avant-garde theatre troupe based in North Hollywood, California, Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre has been around since August of 1992. Their primary production, Urban Death, was one of the offerings you could encounter at this year’s Midsummer Scream. I sat down with Zombie Joe, the head and founder of the group.

I asked Zombie Joe how he decided on the type of performances the group does. (You can read a short description of what I witnessed at Midsummer Scream in my wrap-up article.)

“Basically just my inner demons and just life being like completely terrifying,” he said, his voice contradictorily calm. “I’ve always been in the theater since I could walk. I’ve always been a child actor. [I like] bringing our own aesthetic and our own experience that’s really influenced by the Russian masters like Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Gogol, Lermontov, and really being inspired. [I’m also] inspired by Brecht as well and Chekhov. Ultimately, it’s about the theatre of cruelty to the stage. That all led to kind of a West Coast smug French tableau-style theater.”

I asked him why he went with zombies for his name as well as the troupe’s. It’s a nickname from many years ago, he stated. “I think it really came from the group itself, from the people involved,” he continued. “Just our general love of foreign theater, really wanting to do something deep and meaningful and different and entertaining, and just be pure entertainment.”

While I try not to ask writers where they get their ideas (as a writer myself, I know they come from any number of influences), I wanted to talk about Urban Death specifically.

“Urban Death was started with Jana Wimer and myself in 2005,” he said. “[It came from] loving horror and loving really intense avant-garde theater. We wanted to combine the two and bring something really different and something earthy and organic to our lives and to the theater and to the public. We wanted to try something. So it just kind of started from there. “Urban Death will cover all levels of horror,” Zombie Joe continued, “from completely absurd, ridiculous, to really heart-wrenching emotional pieces.”

As the production is a series of vignettes, I asked if every production of Urban Death is the same or if they vary it.

“We do different vignettes,” he answered. “We have a catalogue of about 600 vignettes that we do. They all have scored music to them. A lot of them have their own score tracks to them. We have several guest composers like Joseph Bishara, who does the music with The Conjuring and the Annabelle movies. This show at Midsummer Scream is our convention sampler: most of the show is new or variants of other pieces. We’re always trying to do, if possible, a 70 to 80 percent new show so people can return.”

I asked if he had a favorite vignette. “Actually, one of my favorite vignettes didn’t make it into the [Midsummer Scream] show,” Zombie Joe said. “It almost made it in. We want to make sure we have a flow that’s interesting. I do like Elijah [Cunnally] for our family-friendly one. He plays a little kid at a pool, running back and forth, and he’s building up the courage to come and Urban Death himself, to jump into the pool as a kid.”

Most of the Zombie Joe Theatre productions are for those 18 and over, although they have done a ‘kid friendly’ version. We talked about their show decisions next. “We used to do Urban Death for kids,” he said. “Some of our shows that we do are for educational purposes. Like we’ll do Ivanov. If we do a classic show, we’ll try to make it for all ages, because we get a lot of students from the universities coming. But generally the shows have been 18+. If we’re ever going to touch you like in a non-private kind of way, or even hold your hand, you have to sign a waiver.”

Zombie Joe continued, “So we’ve been doing a lot of those experiences as of late. It’s sort of a mini-golden age for zombies, innovation, new shows. We just did a big hit show – ’80s Summer Slasher. We’re just a small little operation, but we have big hearts and we’re always trying to just stay open and keep moving.”

The company has a regular core of actors for the most part. “We’re very much a theater family,” he said. “Probably 40 to 60 at any given time including writers, creators, artists, directors. It’s a non-dues paying company, so an open door – a revolving door. But most of us stick around for a long time, if not from the beginning, and we’re very much an underground theater in a lot of ways.”

The troupe is also diverse. “We encourage women and trans people to have a voice in our company,” Zombie Joe said. “Even though I’m at the top, we’re really very much run by women in our group. All that hardcore stuff that we do – that’s almost all inspired by women and the trans community.”

As for what’s next for the group, they are currently performing The Exorcism of Sophia Grace this weekend. “That’s going to be a super-exciting exorcism show,” he said. “One of the members of Urban Death is doing an experience called Another Nail in the Coffin, which is like a nail salon turned apocalyptic. And we’re doing a show called The Guy Man & Maureen: The Power Sort of Awakens. That’s a superhero, super-person play that we’re doing that takes place in the Midwest. And Dark-Dark-Dark-Ride: It’s literally a ride – a hand-pushed dark ride with trick or treating in it. Then Urban Death: Tour of Terror: Haunted Theatre Attraction opens in September. That’s our big seasonal show.”

October, of course, is their busy season. They see more patrons in that month more than all the other 11 months combined. “It’s the one time of the year when people come from all over the world will include us in horror nights, will include us in their haunt season,” he boasts.

“A lot of it is doing something, enjoying it, and then moving on. There’s no time to let the grass grow at our feet,” Zombie Joe said. “We got to keep moving as artists, always. I believe as artists, we’re always earning our seat. We never really own it. We’re always just constantly moving forward, like ‘What have you done lately?'”

Why should you attend one of ZJU’s shows? “Well, we could use the support – we could use their 25 bucks,” he joked. “We get a lot of new people that have never seen plays before in their life. So there’s a heavy responsibility to really give everyone the premium experience, and really believe in theater and really believe for all of us. If some nobody sets out to do a poor play, if you do a play that’s not great, you’re really kind of killing some part of the world. We really believe in theater and we believe in haunt season and we believe in great entertainment at a reasonable price and we want everyone to enjoy that.”

For more information on Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre Group, you can visit their website.

Author: Angie Fiedler Sutton

Angie Fiedler Sutton is a writer, podcaster, and all-round fangirl geek. She has been published in Den of Geek, Stage Directions, LA Weekly, The Mary Sue, and others.

She also produces her own podcast, Contents May Vary, where she interviews geeky people about geeky things. You can see all her work (and social media channels) at angiefsutton.com.

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