The crowning moment of the B-CC theater production of The Great Gatsby is no doubt when Gatsby is shot by Wilson, and falls off a raised platform to his assumed death. But did you know that during every performance, his actor actually died?
Notably, each performance, the actor died in a completely different way. On night one, stage crew “forgot” (he had cussed them out earlier in the day) to lay down a cushion, so when he fell, he shattered his spine into coincidentally the exact same amount of pages as there are in The Great Gatsby script. On night two, the continually disgruntled stage crew replaced the blanks in the show’s prop gun with real bullets, causing the actor to die of multiple gunshot wounds. On the third and final night of the show, after everything seemed to go well, the stage crew jumped Gatsby after his stunt fall, and bludgeoned him to death with various styrofoam props. Thankfully, on each of the three nights, B-CC’s resident necromancer, G’larth’ul the Undying, was on hand to revive the actor after each of his increasingly painful deaths.
“It’s a pretty simple matter, reviving someone,” spoke G’larth’ul. “All you have to do is venture into the aetherian plane, grab their soul from its eternal resting place, and stuff it back into the body. Here, let me show you!” G’larth’ul proceeded to cast a spell, causing our interviewer John Muerto to collapse to the ground. But in the time it takes to say “the ancient tomb of Nkl’vruth’toth”, Muerto was revived, back in perfect health (if screaming in horror). “If I’m being honest, necromancy is only a side gig of mine. I really want to be an actor, that’s why I joined the theater team. Sadly I didn’t pass the auditions. Apparently I was ‘too skeletal’ and ‘would cause heart attacks out of fear in the audience.’ Playing Daisy would have made my career, you know. Necrophobia is a real issue these days, I tell ya.”
We also attempted to interview the actor who played Jay Gatsby, but his only response was “If I could do everything all over again, I would. Words cannot express my sheer hatred of the stage crew. Those little brats have never done anything good for the world. They’re too scared to even go on stage in the light.” Before the interview could continue, a stage light fell on his head, knocking him out.
At press time, plans to hire more necromancers is underway, for the spring production of Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
