Zombies invade UAH Music, Theatre, Film! Bring your brains and enjoy the treats
HUNTSVILLE – An original take on a zombie movie classic and a spooky, high-tech musical favorite will offer Halloween treats for the whole community from the Department of Music, Theatre, & Film at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama System. UAH Theatre will present its multimedia staging of “Night of the Living Dead” Wednesday, Oct. 21, through Friday, Oct. 23, at 7:30 p.m. and midnight; Saturday, Oct. 24, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, Oct. 25, at 2:30 p.m. in the Robert E. James Black Box Theatre in Morton Hall. Tickets, available through Eventbrite, are $10 for general admission. Tickets are free for UAH students with a valid ID.
Spectral pianists and a zombie chorus will fill Roberts Recital Hall on Friday, Oct. 30, at 6 p.m. for the annual Haunted Piano Experience. The event is open to the public free of charge and is suitable for spirits of all ages. It’s happening the day before Halloween, so candy will be distributed following the performance.
More than a scream-fest
In the 1968 film “Night of the Living Dead,” writer and director George A. Romero redefined zombie tales and established modern rules for the walking dead.
“It reinvented horror and introduced us to the idea of horror as a metaphor for something larger,” says Amy Guerin, UAH Theatre associate professor and producer and movement director for this show. “Romero gave us a movie about racism that was cloaked in zombie mythology and lore.”
The idea for a live adaptation came from Dr. Joseph Watson, associate professor of film and media arts (FMA). He contacted the Romero estate and received permission to adapt the screenplay into a condensed stage version. Watson died recently from pancreatic cancer, and the production is presented in memory of him.
“We had thought at the start that he would be able to be a part of the production team, to be the driver behind this project,” Guerin says. “We were even more determined after he passed to make this into a tribute for him from his colleagues and his students.”
Watson’s reimagination of “Night of the Living Dead” rose from one of the favorite classes he taught at UAH – FMA 450, History of Horror.
“Dr. Watson was always intrigued by horror, by its scholastic possibilities for research,” Guerin says. “Why do we make horror movies? Why are we drawn to them? What do they tell us about our society? These were big research questions that he was able to pursue in his projects and in this class.”
Watson’s vision incorporates filmed scenes and live-streamed off-stage action happening simultaneously with the performances on stage.
Guerin promises there’ll be blood, guts and zombie gore, including a nontoxic blood recipe that can be easily washed out of clothing and realistic fake skin suitable for chomping – a couple of new developments from the props and special-effects masters for this ambitious show.
“This is one of the biggest shows that UAH has done in years,” she says. “There are 36 students from across the university in our cast and crew, as well as a huge faculty team that’s supporting the production. It’s going to be something special, something that you haven’t ever seen before.”
High-tech sights, sounds, chills
A realistic haunting, much like an outstanding musical performance, requires many hours of precise preparations. For the past nine years, Matthew Westmeyer and his team of faculty and students have devoted the time to blend live performers with advanced technology to present the thrills and chills of the Haunted Piano Experience.
To fill Roberts Recital Hall with creepy musical magic, Westmeyer, a recording engineer, sound designer, composer and music technology instructor at UAH, records videos of real pianists playing their selections on UAH’s high-tech Yamaha grand piano. With its ability to capture and reproduce high-resolution performances, including key velocity, hammer movement and pedal data, this computerized instrument is one of the stars of the show.
The videos of the performing pianists will be projected from the back of the stage onto a scrim, a loosely woven theater drop that appears translucent when lit from the back. The scrim will hang from the ceiling at the front of the stage between the audience and the piano.
“The projector will sit in the back corner of the stage, and it’ll project towards the audience,” Westmeyer says. “The audience won’t see the projection of it; they’ll just see what hits the scrim.”
The projected “ghost” of Dr. Matthew Carey, associate professor, choral activities, will conduct the concert, which will feature a Zombie Choir – aka the UAH Concert Choir in ghoulish makeup and costumes – at the back of the stage.
The Haunted Piano Experience aims to delight the community with a showcase of UAH talent, but the 2026 presentation has a research purpose, too.
During the performance, some of those singing zombies will be outfitted with sensors to measure heart rate and other biometrics as part of a collaboration among the Department of Music, Theatre, & Film in the College of Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences; the Department of Kinesiology in the College of Education, Sport, and Human Sciences, and the College of Nursing.
This study of the physiology of music performers is another example of innovative ways in which the arts and the sciences perform in harmony at UAH.
