Have you seen these celebrities? Or anyone who looks like them?
A Coney Island theater company seeks look-alikes of four 1950s Hollywood actors for its zany upcoming rock opera about a jukebox that comes to life. Funhouse Philosophers will hold an open casting call this Sunday, Oct. 27, for actors and singers that bear a resemblance to famous figures Jayne Mansfield, Sidney Poitier, Audrey Hepburn, or Jackie Coogan (as he appeared just prior to his role as Uncle Fester in “The Addams Family”) to star in the show “Bloody Brains in a Juke Box” in the spring, according to the show’s writer.
“If you look like any of those characters, and you don’t know what you’re going to dress up as for Halloween, why not dress up as them and use it as an opportunity to be part of the opera?” asked Dick Zigun.
Each of the characters die by the second act of the three-hour show — but their brains are preserved inside a Wurlitzer Jukebox, which then achieves consciousness, flies around, sings, and brings the dead back to life in a dystopia 150 years in the future, according to Zigun.
“The play is about, on a very cerebral level, advances in modern science yet to come, about human consciousness existing outside the body,” he said.
Zigun conceived of the story four decades ago while working at a California film studio, but only recently decided to stage it, after gaining name recognition as the founder of the annual Mermaid Parade and the Sideshow in the People’s Playground.
“I had to figure out how to do it and get older and wiser,” he said.
The show was originally scheduled to run this fall, but Zigun and his co-creators have rescheduled to March of 2020 to give them time to cast these four vital roles. The unofficial mayor of Coney Island hopes that aspiring talent will give it a go.
“If you’re a young New Yorker aspiring to be a singer or in the theater, Coney Island USA obviously isn’t Broadway, but you can do worse than be cast in the lead role for the rock opera,” he said.
“Bloody Brains in a Juke Box” casting call at Coney Island USA [1208 Surf Ave., at W. 12th Street in Coney Island, (718) 372–5159, www.coney
