Dialogue with Three Chords answers call of Cthulhu with play revealing the man behind the monsters

PRLog (Press Release) - Oct. 25, 2012 - Dialogue with Three Chords presents “Lovecraft in Brooklyn” a staged reading of a new work from playwright Stephen Gracia that explores H.P. Lovecraft’s tumultuous time living in Brooklyn while newly married. The reading also includes the curtain raiser “When I Dream, I See Strange Men: The Ascension of Elias” which deals with an imagined alien abduction. Both pieces are directed by Michael LoPorto. The show also features live music from Tommy Lombardozzi on October 25 downstairs at Mr. Dennehy’s pub on 63 Carmine Street in Manhattan. Admission is free with a $3 suggested donation.

“‘Lovecraft in Brooklyn’ tells a fictionalized account of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft’s disastrous two year marriage to Sonia Greene,” explains Gracia. Lovecraft came to Brooklyn in 1924 and settled there with his new wife as a mildly successful writer of pulp stories. “Lovecraft in Brooklyn” visits the Lovecrafts at four key points in their marriage, imagining and exploring the effects that madness, fear, and a terrible family history have on a doomed relationship. “The despair and alienation he felt following the end of his marriage, coupled with his intense xenophobia in a city full of immigrants,” Gracia says, “aided him in crafting his most memorable series of stories: The Cthulhu Mythos.”

Many scholars point to Lovecraft’s racism as the most controversial aspect of his contributions to the horror genre. “Lovecraft in Brooklyn” delves deeper into the imagined psyche of the writer, exploring how the isolationism that fueled his greatest works also condemned him to a life of great sadness. “When I sat down to write I was focused on Lovecraft’s racism and how much his experience in New York turned contempt into hate and hate into terror and how this terror led him to create such disturbing alien worlds in his fiction,” Gracia continues, “that terror still exists in the play, but I found myself more interested in his marriage, his attempt to love someone despite having utterly no idea how to go about it.”

The curtain raiser, “When I Dream, I See Strange Men: The Ascension of Elias” is the third entry in the ongoing “When I Dream” series of monologues dealing with characters who claim to have encountered extra-terrestrials. Elias sketches monsters, mumbles to himself, and preaches to a bar full of strangers about the spiritual nature of his abduction. For more information on Dialogue with Three Chords, visit: http://stephengracia.org

“Lovecraft in Brooklyn” features: Greg Skura as Phillip and Jennifer Skura as Sonia.

“When I Dream, I See Strange Men: The Ascension of Elias” features: Sean Meehan as Elias.

Dialogue with Three Chords was founded by Stephen Gracia and Michael LoPorto and applies the do-it-yourself philosophy of punk to the stage and features short plays and live music. Their work has also been produced at Sargent Theatre, Makor Theater, DUMBO Theatre Exchange, Levenson Hall at Brooklyn College, and the Theaters at 45 Bleecker.