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by Eric Woolfe, directed by Ric Waugh

Eldritch Theatre, Red Sandcastle Theatre, 922 Queen Street East, Toronto

April 29–May 10, 2026

The Brain: “I never thought the apocalypse would be so gross!”

I don’t think anyone attending a show called Zombocalypse! will be expecting a lost play by Chekhov or Tennessee Williams. Instead, potential audience members should expect an hilarious live version of a low-budget horror movie that is equal parts silly, scary and amazingly imaginative. Not many plays successfully combine live actors, masks, puppets and magic to such to such great effect.

The website for Eldritch Theatre summarizes the play’s concept very well: “The Dead rise from their graves to feast on the flesh of the living in a suburban high school in 1985. A jock, a brain, a rebel, a preppie and a basket-case barricade themselves in their school cafeteria to fend off the gathering hordes of their hungry, undead friends, only to discover that their real enemies are each other. It’s totally The Breakfast Club, but like with Zombies”. The only exaggeration in this description is that “their real enemies are each other”. The teens may squabble but it’s never in doubt that the zombies are their enemies.

Creator Eric Woolfe places the action within two frames. In one, the teens explain to us directly how the gruesome events of fifty years ago transpired. They do this as if they were still the teenagers of 1985 and as if they were still alive. There is no explanation for this and it is likely that the illogic of the situation is meant to be comic.

A second frame sets up the events of 1985 as a warning to us of how to act during a zombie apocalypse. This useful information is imparted to us by a German-accented, monocle-wearing Dr. Logan whose sidekick is an Aardvark (puppet). It’s rather like a demented version of Captain Kangaroo and his puppet friend Mr. Moose. Its analytical approach towards the terrible incidents we witness is also reminiscent of the Criminologist in The Rocky Horror Show (1973), except that Dr. Logan explain his rules using magic tricks rather than charts.

As we learn from the teen narrators, the problem began when two kids (grotesque puppets manipulated by Eric Woolfe and Jeanie Calleja) are in the midst of deciding whether to go “all the way”. Before they can decide, one of them is bitten by an “AIDSy-looking” homeless man who is really a zombie. From there the epidemic expands exponentially through the high school affecting both teachers and students. (I doubt that Woolfe expects us to see the show as a metaphor for the AIDS epidemic, but since he does mention the disease more than once, he does leave it as a possibility.)

Five students representing stereotypes in 1980s high schools, eventually gather in the school cafeteria with the notion that they will need food to keep fighting. Meanwhile, the school’s Vice Principal and a janitor hole up in the school’s shop. Through monologues directly addressed to the audience and through flashbacks, we discover more about who the students are.

The main disagreement among the five is who should lead. The Preppie, who is currently the student Prime Minister, thinks he should be the leader, while the Rebel, aka Rocker Girl, is more practical. The Preppie was in a relationship with the Jock, but she has just broken it off hoping to elicit more ardor form him. Meanwhile, the Brain, a didactic, straight A oboist, finds herself unaccountably attracted to the Basket-Case, a would-be punk with a green mohawk, whom she has never met before. Despite the surrounding grotesquerie, Woolfe develops a tender story between the Basket-Case and the Jock that actually becomes quite moving. Woolfe also engineers the most nerve-wracking game of rock-paper-scissors I’ve ever seen. Yet, in a rare moment of unity, all five teens come together to dance to “Pop Goes the World” (1987) by Men Without Hats.

Arguments among the five rage on while ever more zombies mass outside the room. Will any of the teens we know get out alive?

Zombolcalypse! may be a satire of both The Breakfast Club and zombie movies, but it is also very cleverly written and directed. Woolfe has an uncanny memory of how 1980s teens of every stripe spoke and of the huge importance of status and cliques in high school. Woolfe derives a lot of humour from contrast of the teens’ picayune preoccupations with the life-and-death battle they are fighting. Besides this, the show is also packed full of great lines such as “Once you’ve killed someone with an oboe, there’s no going back”.

Director Ric Waugh makes full use of the tiny Red Sandcastle stage, including passage through both doors of the onstage washroom and hiding items in the stage right wall and in the set’s only table. The back of the stage is covered by a screen that still leaves room for movement between it and the very back wall. In one of the most ingenious scenes, a narrow horizontal strip of light is projected on the screen while three actors behind it mime crawling through an air duct. Zombies can pop up from anywhere and their sudden appearance is sure to make you jump out of your seat. There’s no need for a splatter zone despite the copious amounts of blood and viscera because Waugh and Woolfe deftly depict all the gory incidents with red ribbons, cloth and confetti.

What makes this kind of play work is that all the actors pitch their performances at exactly the same level between parody and realism. Eric Woolfe has not only written the script but has designed the myriad types of puppets used and performs the magic. He is very funny as the fanatical, self-satisfied Dr. Logan who gets his zombielike assistant Barbara to help each time with the treat of a tasty eyeball. Woolfe also plays the annoying, privileged Preppie whose bravado seems to be covering up a secret.

Woolfe is also an expert magician. Seeing illusions up close as is unavoidable at the Red Sandcastle makes them even more amazing. I’ve never seen any magician cut a zombie in half so well with an electric jig saw and his illusion of the Multiplying Bottles is a real stunner.

Lisa Norton is hilarious in capturing exactly how high school brainiacs speak and think. Norton suggests that this Brain’s pedantic knowledge on every topic plus the huge range of her after school activities has left her no time for a social life and explains why she falls so hard for the Basket-Case. The detail Norton lends to the Brain’s wordless combat with herself about the attraction is priceless.

Craig Lauzon makes the Basket-Case look clueless from the start. Lauzon speaks with a surfer-dude drawl but his body language reveals that he is just the opposite of cool. Lauzon conveys very well before anyone remarks on it that this basket-case that people might immediately label as a loser, actually has a heart of gold. Lauzon also plays the Aardvark with the perky, high-pitched voice all puppet companions use on children’s programmes.

Jeanie Calleja plays the Jock as as much of an innocent as the Brain and the Basket-Case, but she lends the Jock an essential goodness that helps make her character as sympathetic as Lauzon’s Basket-Case. Woolfe gives the Jock a harrowing monologue describing how she had to kill her best friend to save her own life, a tale made strangely amusing because of how sweetly and earnestly Calleja delivers it.

Kimwun Perehinec plays the Rebel who is the most level-headed of the five. Perehinec makes the Rebel the one character who thinks logically and who easily sees through the pretensions of the Preppie and the Brain. As the character who rejects all the 1980s social constructs the others are part of, Perehinec and her non-nonsense demeanour make her the figure we most identify with.

Zombocalypse! is 90 minutes of sublimely grotesque silliness and spot-on satire. What makes the show a winner is its sheer theatricality — how it accomplishes major effects with the simplest means. After the success of shows about dead teens like Evil Dead The Musical (2006) and Ride the Cyclone (2009), I wouldn’t be surprised if Zombocalypse! became fodder for a musical.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Lisa Norton as the Brain, Jeanie Calleja as the Jock, Craig Lauzon as the Basket-Case, Eric Woolfe as the Preppie and Kimwun Perehinec as the Rebel; Eric Woolfe as Dr. Logan; Kimwun Perehenic as the Rebel, a zombie and Lisa Norton as the Brain; Craig Lauzon as the Aardvark, Eric Woolfe as Dr. Logan and Jeanie Calleja as Barbara. © 2026 Aidan Ware.

For tickets visit: eldritchtheatre.ca.