Selling Unidentified Human Remains
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Boldly mounted by British director Derek Goldby, with a cast primarily made up of New York and Canadian actors, Unidentified Human Remains is putting Frazier’s marketing skills to the supreme test in this generally conservative city. While he hopes to lure a good chunk of the audience that previously supported such relatively tame Halsted Theatre Centre productions as Oil City Symphony, Sammy Cahn: Words and Music, and Forbidden Broadway, he also wants to reach people not frequently seen in theaters, particularly those in the under-30 crowd. To help reach both markets, Frazier has hired an unusual marketing and public relations team that includes Doug Hartzell and Jim Casey, producers of the offbeat camp classic Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, and Maxine Walzer, a veteran publicist who honed her skills publicizing musicals at the Candlelight Dinner Playhouse for three decades. Over the years, Candlelight has produced fine theater, but nothing like the sexually charged powder keg Walzer is now promoting.
During previews, Hartzell, Casey, and Walzer arranged special promotions with groups from such disparate locales as Roscoe’s, a gay bar on North Halsted, and the Baja Beach Club, the yuppie refuge on North Pier, hoping to develop some all-important word of mouth in several different market segments. Hartzell also produced a 30-second commercial for cable TV featuring a photo of a couple swathed in sheets.
