L.A. Stage reports that Re-Animator: The Musical is alive – and re-animating!

“Based on the book by H.P. Lovecraft, adapted by Dennis Paoli, Stuart Gordon and William Norris, with music and lyrics by Mark Nutter, helmed by Gordon, the Ovation Award-winning rock tuner – also nominated for 4 LADCC Awards and 8 LA Weekly Awards – is moving to downtown LA’s Hayworth Theatre for a 10-week run, prior to its appearance at NYMF (New York Musical Theatre Festival) and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The original cast, including George Wendt, is intact – occasionally headless, but intact.”

Alexander Rosetti writes today…

“I’m currently writing a song cycle based on Lovecraft’s Fungi From Yuggoth, and a poem in this collection entitled Nyarlathotep (after the character) is what I’m working on setting to music right now. I plan on premiering this song by itself this semester and the full set next year for my senior composition recital”

A new mini-interview with Lovecraftian sculptor Bryan Moore, of Arkham Studios…

“[I] am currently creating a sculpture of H.P. Lovecraft for the city of Providence, Rhode Island”

The perils of Spore, a popular videogame with evolutionary aspects built in…

The [videogaming experience] that sticks in my mind was a result of my incessant playing with Spore’s creature creation tools. I spent one afternoon creating monsters from H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, looking up their descriptions and trying to build creatures that perfectly matched Lovecraft’s vision. I felt at the time that I’d had little success, since Spore’s cutesy look left most of them looking more cuddly than terrifying.

I had completely forgotten this exercise as I played through the main game a few weeks later. My new species was [now autonomously] developing toward a tribal culture, and were learning to hunt in a pack and find fruit. Suddenly a huge shadow passed overhead, and with a ground-shaking crash, the great lord Cthulhu himself landed in front of us.

You see, Spore would randomly seed the game world with creatures you and your friends had made, sometimes in groups, and sometimes as larger solitary creatures. This was an [game-evolved] “epic” instance of Cthulhu, perhaps 100 feet tall. What had looked cute when I had made it was suddenly one of the scariest things I had ever seen. The hulking green monstrosity then proceeded to devour my entire tribe.

That’s right, in my game of Spore I had a budding civilisation wiped out by Cthulhu himself.