Ottawa audiences can get 'splattered' at Evil Dead: The Musical for the first time in almost 20 years

Trish Williams has been boiling fake blood in her kitchen.

The prop designer abandoned her usual recipe when it turned out too “gross” for Ottawa’s first full production of Evil Dead: The Musical in almost two decades.

“The stuff I would use on Halloween just got too sticky,” Williams said.

Trial and error led her to a new formula of cornstarch and cocoa powder mixed with food colouring for a more coagulated goo. She seals globs in dollar-store bags for actors to burst on stage whenever they develop demonic tendencies or part with a limb — regular occurrences in the horror comedy hit.

A thinner mix of coloured sugar water, easier to wash out of clothes, is reserved for the audience. By the night of Oct. 29, 2026, those in the front rows at Shenkman Arts Centre in Orléans will be wearing the concoction.

Evil Dead: The Musical is famous for its splatter zone, a block of seats where theatregoers are drenched in fake gore. Artistic director Benjamin Haile said it is “a huge part of the cult following.”

Fabric seating at Arts Court kept onlookers dry at the sold-out opening nights on Oct. 22 and 23. Lost Baggage Musical Theatre, the community theatre company behind the local production, had hoped for two weeks downtown, but a scheduling conflict sent the second week to Shenkman, which has embraced the mess.

“They’re replacing all of the front seats with plastic seats … so they’re basically telling us we can go wild with this first section,” Haile said. “Theoretically, the blood splatter is only supposed to be within the first two rows or so.”

The four performances in Orléans are Ottawa’s only chance of the season to wear the second act home.

The show is a Canadian creation, born at Toronto’s Tranzac Club in 2003. George Reinblatt wrote the book and lyrics for the musical, which has since had more than 500 productions worldwide. The script mashes up the Evil Dead trilogy by Sam Raimi, three cult horror films released between 1981 and 1992.

In the musical, five college students vacation at a cabin in the woods and accidentally summon demons, who possess them one by one. Ash, a cocky housewares clerk played by Dominic Perrin, cuts off his possessed hand and straps a chainsaw to the stump to even the odds. The undead crack jokes while the survivors sing through the carnage.

Its appeal has held steady, according to Jason Cocovinis, marketing director at Music Theatre International, which licenses the show. “Evil Dead is a perennially popular spooky-season musical,” he wrote in an email. “But who doesn’t love a male lead with a chainsaw for a hand?”

Ottawa fans have waited a long time for the cabin to reopen. Williams remembers seeing a local production about 17 years ago, when her uncle was in the cast. Adam Goldberg, who plays Knowby and the Moose in the current staging, appeared in it, too.

“They keep doing (the show) in Toronto, but it’s not really something that does a lot up here,” Haile said.

Immaculata High School staged the school edition in 2025 using more polite lyrics and dialogue. Lost Baggage is presenting the adult original, which includes the raucous number “What the F**k Was That?”

“There are so many fantastic tracks that are just earworms … They get stuck in your head in a good way,” Haile said.

Bruce Campbell, the star of the films, has been a hero of his since his teenage years. Campbell played Ash as a classic Hollywood hero who brandishes cutting sarcasm like a weapon. “Even when he’s completely losing, he’s still kind of winning,” Haile said.

The artistic director believes the attitude is exactly what audiences need at the moment. “That’s the beauty of this show, especially given the current state of everything,” Haile said. He hopes audiences find “a wonderful cathartic release” in the comedy.

Set designer Sue Armstrong began rehearsals expecting horror, but left comparing the show to Monty Python. “I don’t even think of the horror at all,” she said.

Her son had doubts before she signed on. “Mom, are you sure you really want to do Evil Dead?” she recalled him asking. He had seen the films and worried the gore would be too much for her. Armstrong shrugs the worry off as a matter of perspective. “It’s theatre,” she said.

She designed a single fixed cabin for the musical and calls the kitchen “the dismemberment area.” Her favourite piece is the cellar door, which she considers “almost like another character.”

Armstrong placed the hatch downstage, as close to the audience as possible. Parker Behm, who plays Ash’s unlucky sister, Cheryl, spends much of the evening popping in and out of it. “She and that cellar door together, they’re just outstanding,” Armstrong said.

The cabin needed an identical footprint at both theatres to preserve the movements learned in rehearsal. A handful of seats at Shenkman were moved to give spectators looking up at the stage clear views past the cellar door.

The paint also required negotiations with the lighting designer, who needed a flat finish in place of glossy walls more easily cleaned of fake blood.

Haile kept nudging Armstrong toward silliness. “He has to keep on reminding me … it’s OK if something is too kooky or doesn’t make sense because this is Evil Dead,” she said.

Haile lived in Chicago for about a decade before moving to Canada with his family. “When Trump first got the nomination, we got out,” he said.

His wife later pushed him to audition for Jekyll and Hyde, his introduction to the theatre community in Ottawa. “I was blown away to see the level of talent,” Haile recalled.

Since the first table read for Evil Dead, Haile has told his cast to play bigger than they would in a typical musical. “However funny and crazy you think you want to go … go more,” he said. “Keep pushing it; I will pull you back if you cross a line.”

He balances the comic exaggeration with feeling, hoping audiences grow attached enough to characters to feel sad when they transform into demons. “They’re still kind of real people,” he said.

The fights draw on his stage combat training from university in Illinois. He spent four summers at an outdoor drama in Ohio firing flaming arrows from a cantering horse. Few of his actors had combat experience, so Haile taught them from the basics.

“Everyone, when they jump into stage combat, they want to go to a Jackie Chan movie,” he said. A slower punch gives spectators in the back row time to follow the blow and to register the reaction.

Many in the cast are also newer to leading roles. Haile prefers casting less familiar performers so Ottawa can see “how good they really are.”

Seating at Shenkman is general admission, so splatter-zone hopefuls should arrive early. Evening performances begin at half past seven from Oct. 29 through Halloween, after doors open at 7 p.m. The Saturday matinée begins at half past two. Tickets cost $35 regular or $30 for students and seniors.

Haile suggested Ottawa audiences could face a shorter wait before Evil Dead returns to the capital. “I’m hoping we can actually get it remounted every couple of years,” he said.

Lost Baggage staged The Rocky Horror Show around Halloween last year, making Evil Dead the second chapter of a spooky season series. The company’s Canadian season continues in March with Anne of Green Gables, a farmhouse with considerably fewer demonic possessions.

Haile plans to attend all four Evil Dead shows in Orléans, armed with his “rather distinct, quite loud laughter.”

“Honestly, I just want people to have a good time,” he said.

His wife is dressing for the splatter zone like a bride. She found a white wedding gown at a thrift store and plans to wear it front row centre, for better or for gore. Her request to the cast, relayed by Haile, leaves little room for interpretation.

“Tell your actors to aim right at me.”

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