Center for Puppetry Arts reanimates Ghastly Dreadfuls

Last night I hit The Center for Puppetry Arts for opening night of The Ghastly Dreadfuls II: Handbook of Practical Hauntings and Other Phantasmagoria by Jon Ludwig and Jason Von Hinezmeyer. I’ll review it in more detail closer to Halloween, but wanted to mention that it easily lives up to its entertaining predecessor, The Ghastly Dreadfuls: Compendium of Graveyard Tales and Other Curiosities (which I previewed in 2006).

The follow-up has the same cast and same format, presenting seven undead storyteller/musicians, who use puppetry to recount chilling ghost stories while playing spooky tunes between tales. The new version presents new songs and stories, with the exceptions of “The Girl in the New Dress,” inspired by vintage Coca-Cola print ads, and “Danse Macabre,” a performance of the classic-Saint-Saens composition while amorous, boozing skeletons and other haints party down in a graveyard. You can catch glimpses of the latter two in this preview clip edited from the show’s previous incarnation:

So a funny thing happened at opening night...