Kevin Gillese, artistic director of Dad’s Garage, was born 35 years ago on Christmas Eve. His mother carried him home from the hospital in a red-and-white Christmas stocking.
“Because Christmas Eve is on my birthday, I grew up feeling totally screwed over with parties and presents because I never got to do much,” Gillese said. (His perspective has since changed; read more in the Q and A.)
Gillese, who continues to have a love-hate relationship with Christmas, has teamed up with his longtime creative collaborator, Arlen Konopaki, to write the irreverent, decidedly family-unfriendly show "Merry %#!*ing Christmas," which makes its world premiere at the Alliance Theatre's Hertz Stage running through Dec. 19. (7:30 p.m. Thursdays; 8 and 10:30 p.m Fridays-Saturdays. $15-$25.
The twisted holiday show, strictly for adults, and for those who don’t get easily offended, features a salty Frosty with gender confusion and an evil Santa who blames corporate greed for the death of Mrs. Claus (and he is bent on revenge).
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently interviewed Gillese by phone about the show, and his views on Christmas.
Q: Tell me about the show.
A: We have a stage manager for the show who is new to Dad’s Garage … Grace Madden. I asked her, “Grace, do you think this show has a theme?” and she said, “Oh yes,” and she goes, “Swear a lot and be nice to people,” and I thought you know what, this just might be it. … It’s about friendship and it’s about love and acceptance and it’s about finding a way to celebrate each other despite all of the craziness of the holidays. Now, I would be shocked if that is what people walked away with. What you see at first glance is a bunch more eye-grabbing stuff. Frosty has complete gender confusion. No gender identity. That’s one of the big struggles for Frosty. And then of course, global warming kicks in, and that’s also a major struggle for Frosty. Scrooge has been brought up from the past, and he gets teamed up with one of the three wise men and they are trying to stop Santa because Santa has kind of gone crazy and is raging against corporate America, trying to take down the machine. The actual events that are happening are definitely silly and wacky.
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