Songs and Screams: Nathaniel Bacon fundraises for horror and a fledgling Dirty Bird

by Drew Rowsome

Actor/singer Nathaniel Bacon's genial demeanour and good looks hide a dark secret: Bacon is a horror fanatic. To that end he has become part of the group creating Dirty Bird Theatre, "an upstart indie company specializing in on-stage horror." Further Dirty Bird details are vague but starting off with beefcake gore photos and a musical fundraiser entitled Songs and Screams bodes well.

Bacon may not have a background in cabaret but he was a standout in his year competing in Queer Idol and the perks that being a finalist brought him. His "vicious, dirty, campy and real" turn in Hedwig and the Angry Inch at the Lower Ossington Theatre was not only a hit but also snagged him a Broadway World Toronto Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. And dramatically he turned heads in Bent, played a porn superstar in Sky Gilbert's My Dinner with Casey Donovan after creating a hunky farmboy in Gilbert's St Francis of Millbrook, offering a twist on Sherlock Holmes, and managed to squeeze in some television guest spots, the latest being a death scene in Reign.

Songs and Screams features the stellar band from Hedwig and the Angry Inch with musical director Mike Ross, as well as Kit Boulter who was a dynamic whirlwind of a foil in Hedwig. Also guesting is the sizzling Melissa Azore and the irresistible, irrepressible, scary Elley-Ray Hennesy (Gash!) who Bacon worked with in both St Francis of Millbrook and My Dinner with Casey Donovan. Bacon promises "laughs, screams and kick-ass music" with a side order of Grand Guignol skin. 

It's a safe bet that the set list will include some songs from Hedwig but also a sampling of the divas - Etta James, Beyoncé - that Bacon loves to channel. Maybe even his Buffy idol Sarah Michelle Gellar, who was at the center of a very successful horror/musical hybrid when she warbled,

Give me something to sing about!
I need something to sing about!

Now that would be a Dirty Bird production to scream about.

Photos by Mitchel Raphael, mitchelraphael.com