Album Notes

VICE PALACE was originally presented to capacity crowds at the 1200 seat Palace Theater in San Francisco Halloween weekend, 1972, with John Waters' film stars Divine & Mink Stole and many of the gender-bending trend-setting multi-sex troupe, The Cockettes. Troupe members Martin Worman (book and lyrics) and Scrumbly Koldewyn (music) created the show, and in this revival version, Scrumbly replaced non-original songs from the first production with 9 new songs, plus incidental music. Based on Poe's "Mask of the Red Death", the show is set in Italy in the early 1960s and is styled heavily on the Federico Fellini films "La Dolce Vita", "8 1/2" and "Juliette of the Spirits", hence Scrumbly's homage in much of the music to Nino Rota, Fillini's composer for most all his soundtracks.
The 2011 revival production by the Thrillpeddlers was directed by Russell Blackwood and starred Leigh Crow in the role of Divina, who invites all her beautiful jet-set friends to her villa to escape ravages of the plague, giving them lavish and progressively more outrageous and depraved entertainments until the Red Death finally catches up to them.
The CAST:
Leigh Crow (Divina), Eric Tyson Wertz (Bella), Bonni Suval (Gina), Flynn de Marco (Goldoni), Tony Wichowski (Federico Fellatio), Laura LeBleu (Vicci), Russell Blackwood (Lucretia), TJ Buswell (Paolo), Ste Fishell (Tonio), L. Ron Hubby (Sylva), Birdy-Bob Watt (Vageena), Scrumbly Koldewyn (Sarafina), Anne Feinsod (Rosella), Steven Satyricon (Niccolini), Joshua Devore (Ricciolini), Tina Solgiuzzo (Lola), Fennel Skellyman (Marco), Jim Toczyl (Polo).
BAND: Scrumbly Koldewyn (Piano), Birdy-Bob Watt (Keyboard), and Steven Bolinger (Drums)
Recorded at Thrillpeddler's Hypnodrome by Chris Paulina