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October Newsletter
BE GOOD TO BERNIE NOLAN...AND ALL THAT JAZZ Bernie Nolan, the second youngest of the Nolan sisters, is playing Cook County Jail’s corrupt Matron ‘Mama’ Morton in the musical Chicago. ‘Mama is a great character,’ Nolan says enthusiastically. ‘I love her songs in the show.’ The quintessential Morton song is, of course, the jazzily suggestive – you might think it’s sex, but that’s all graft – ‘If You’re Good to Mama’. But while Nolan might love her big solo
– ‘It’s funny and sarcastic, just like me,’ she mock preens – her favourite song is ‘Class’. It’s a duet between Morton and the fading star of Murderers Row Velma Kelly, played by Coronation Street star Tupele Dorgu, that foul-mouthedly laments the ungracious world. ‘It’s a great duet,’ Nolan says. ‘She’s wonderful. It’s a wonderful show.’ Chicago will be at The Grand Opera House from October 15-19 and at the Derry Millennium Forum October 22-27 Jackie Hamilton said the gig was arranged to say a big thank you to all the people who have supported the Empire Laughs Back over the past two decades.
PATRICK KIELTY LAUGHS BACK Patrick Kielty returns to the hallowed stage at the Empire on November 6. Club organiser and comedy impresario
‘Paddy hasn’t played the club since 1996 and we thought what better time to get him back than our 20th birthday! He is really looking forward to treading the boards of the Empire Comedy Club again,’ he said. Entry to the club will be the one-time only 1992 rate of just £3.50.
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY AT DOTHEBOYS HALL ‘I am not just here to direct a play. I am here in for the young people in the company,’ McCready says, talking about actors who are committed to the theatre but who also have to keep their day jobs. ‘I am passionate about enabling anyone who wants to do it, to work in theatre.’ McCready first got involved with Fringe Benefits when he was working on his one-man play Dickens at the Ulster Hall with Leon Litvack. While he was here Peter Quigley, who is one of McCready’s old students, asked him to deliver some some workshops for the company. Then to direct a production. Dickens seemed an obvious choice – it is still his 200th anniversary year – but Nicholas Nickleby is less so. It isn’t one of the ‘go to’ novels for adaption, like Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol. McCready, who wrote the adaptation
as well as directing it, got the idea from Royal Shakespeare Company performance he attended in the 1980s and thought was ‘spectacular’. ‘It is a great story with great characters. It has everything those other novels have,’ McCready says in defence of his choice, but he allows that people might not find Nickleby a bit passive. ‘He might not be quite the heroic character that readers want. They don’t connect with him as they do with Pip or Oliver Twist.’ It is, however, the perfect play for Fringe Benefits. ‘They are training young actors to be creative and experimental,’ McCready explains. ‘A non-traditional text that would give them the opportunity to do that seemed ideal.’ The fact it was set in a school, with a lot of different roles, meant that it was also perfect for an ensemble company. There was a role for everyone.’
Nicholas Nickleby at Dotheboys Hall is at the Crescent Arts Centre from October 25 – 28, at The Playhouse in Derry on November 9 and the Strule Arts Centre in Omagh THEATRE REVIEW: LONG ROAD The Long Road followed a bereaved family as they try to come to terms with the brutal death of their son. It is a lyrical, thoughtful study of grief and damage and forgiveness (or the lack of it). It defies you to be unaffected by any of the characters, whether it is the father cuddling his anger to himself or
the killer aggressively digressing Win Tickets to Alfie The Littlestabout Wereolives. wolf on October 6 at NI Scene It is even funny in places, hooking blurts of laughter from the audience before they remember what is appropriate.
The Long Road is at the Lyric Theatre until October 21.
POLITICALLY CORRECT ACCIDENTAL THEATRE Dave Kinghan’s play DEATH (on a shoestring) examines what happens when good ideas, like religion or political correctness, are taken to the extreme. It will be the Accidental Theatre company’s first contribution to the Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queen’s, opening at the Grand Opera House’s Baby Grand Theatre from 23-27 October. ‘We wanted to do a larger play in a larger venue,’ Accidental Theatre’s Artistic Director Richard Lavery explains. ‘Something that was new and exciting. And even though we’d produced DEATH (on a shoestring) before as a Rehearsed Reading, it’s a very different play now.’ And a potentially explosive one since it deals with topics political correctness
and religion. Kinghan, however, doesn’t think the play is particularly controversial. ‘There’s always a risk, but I don’t think it’ll offend anyone,’ he says. ‘It doesn’t attack the ideas, just people who take those ideas to the extreme.’ Richard Lavery describes it as lighthearted play that deals with big issues. ‘You’ll laugh at it, but afterwards it’ll leave you with something to think about.’ So what does happen when political correctness runs amok among the dead – of living impaired, as I should probably call them. ‘Well,’ Kinghan says. ‘It kind of wreaks heaven.’
Win Tickets to Alfie The Littlest Werewolf on October 6 at NI Scene
See DEATH (on a shoestring) at the Grand Opera House October 23-27
THE DANA MASTERS SEXTET An all-star band featuring the astonishing US vocalist Dana Masters and fellow American, saxophone sensation Meilana Gillard has taken up residence in McHugh’s Bar on Saturday evenings. The Dana Masters Sextet play an impressive range of classics from 60’s R&B, Soul, hard bop and the Latin rhythms of bossa nova. For a band
playing together for the first time, the sound was polished and perfectly in sync. South Carolina-born Dana Masters has an extraordinary range and velvety vocals that can make anything from Nina Simone’s ‘My Baby Just Cares for Me’ to the jazz standard ‘My Funny Valentine’ her own. Entry to McHugh’s is free
ZOE SEATON’S SCARLET WWWEB Big Telly Artistic Director Zoe Seaton is getting ready for rehearsals on Big Telly production The Scarlet WWWeb, which will be touring Northern Ireland in October and November. The Scarlet WWWeb was originally two pieces that Seaton had commissioned from playwrights Briana Corrigan and Mary Kelly. ‘Both plays are about the importance, and danger, of imagination. The main characters are women who dream of escape,’ Seaton explains, ‘and are annihilated for it by their community.’ The first play is a fictionalised account of an Irish woman who becomes the last woman burnt as a witch in the British Isles (the trial actually took place in
Scotland). In the second play a woman uses the internet to escape the yuppie rural dream she finds herself living. When her online persona is uncovered, her internet crush tracks her down and her life comes apart. ‘In a way, it’s another world,’ Seaton says about the internet. ‘It’s not that different to the idea of the fairyworld in the first play.’ To explore that Big Telly are going to establish the first Northern Irish theatre company on Second Life. The plan is to mirror the real life rehearsals of the play online in Second Life. ‘We haven’t come up with a name yet,’ Seaton explains, ‘but we’re all going to have our own avatars.’
Scarlet WWWeb opens at Riverside Theatre, Coleraine – October 19 – 20
THREE WITCHES AND A THANE AT THE LYRIC
‘Macbeth is a very Northern Irish play,’ Director Lynne Parker says – of what curse-wary actors call the ‘Scottish Play’. She waves aside the contradiction and ticks off the similarities. ‘It has politics, intrigue and superstition. It is a very Northern Irish mindset. Parker, of course, has plenty of experience bringing dark and complex characters to the stage and plenty of experience with Shakespeare. This is, however, the first time she has combined the two. Macbeth is Parker’s first Shakespearean tragedy. It is a bit of a ‘in at the deep end’ approach.
Parker, however, seems to be enjoying the challenge. She says the most difficult element of the play is managing the audience’s suspension of disbelief. ‘Supernatural influences and tricks of the mind are both part of the set-up in Macbeth,’ she explains. ‘So what you have to do is test what’s believable and make sure the audience is aware of the psychological leaps being taken, the leaps of the imagination.
Macbeth is at the Lyric Theatre from October 21 to November 24
WIN TICKETS TO SEE MACBETH AT THE LYRIC AT NI SCENE. JUST GO THE WEBSITE AND ENTER Time: 2:30 Date: Sunday, October 21 Venue: Lyric Theatre Win Tickets to Alfie The Littlest Werewolf on October 6 at NI Scene
DANCING WITH ECHO ECHO IN THE COVE ‘People think that dance is the least intellectual art form,’ Steve Batts, co-founder and artistic director of Derry~Londonderry based Echo Echo Dance Company, says. ‘But it is fundamentally intellectual.’ That idea – that the dancer has to think, not just move – informed the creation of their latest touring production The Cove. Part of Batts continuing collaboration with artist and mountaineer Dan Shipsides, The Cove is a response to 2011’ s Vertical. Nature. Base . project. VNB saw Shipsides and Batts climbing and performing in Donegal’s secluded Port a Doris. In The Cove Batts took the six dancers involved in The Cove back to Port a Doris
Who is Debbie Isitt? I’m a writer and director mainly of feature films but I am also working on television ideas. Can you tell us a bit about Nativity!? Nativity! is about a primary school teacher, Mr Maddens (Martin Freeman), who has to put on his school Nativity play with a bunch of ‘hopeless’ children. But when his new classroom assistant arrives,
to ‘engage with the space’.The Cove will attempt to recreate the dancers experience at Port a Doris, to actually embody it for the audience in an ‘installed experience’. According to Batts, ‘Thinking is a good idea generally.’ His work certainly encourages it, for the dancers and audience both. See The Cove at October 3 at An Grianan Theatre in Letterkenny, October 4 at Strule Arts Centre in Omagh, October 5 at Roe Valley Arts Centre in Limavady, October 10 at Burnavon Theatre in Cookstown, October 12 in Black Box at Belfast, October 13 at Down Arts Centre in Downpatrick and October 17 at Millennium Forum in Derry-Londonderry.
the crazy Mr Poppy (Marc Wootton), he begins to discover that his children aren’t so hopeless after all. What are you working on now? My new film is the sequel to Nativity! and it is called Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger. A new teacher, played by David Tennant, arrives at St. Bernadette’s school and gets dragged along on a crazy road trip by Mr Poppy, who is taking the children to compete in a song contest called ‘A Song for Christmas’. All kinds of wild and mad things happen to them along the way when they get lost in Wales…it’s very funny Win Tickets to Alfie The Littlest
Cinemagic and Werewolf onFILMCLUB October 6 at are NI Scene offering schools (involved in the initiative) the opportunity to attend a free screening of Nativity! on October 15 at 12.30.
HUZZIES
Fighting to escape from the shadow of her dysfunctional family and their criminal past, Dee brings together the unlikely talents of Shona, Claire and Pete to form a band. Fast paced, direct and full of Stacey Gregg’s trademark wit, Huzzies follows them as they hurl themselves at the music scene. Each other’s best friends and their own worst enemies, the band stumbles from dodgy covers to true inspiration. But just as the success Dee craves seems possible, she faces a terrible choice that threatens all their futures.
Katie Richardson’s brilliant collection of specially composed songs are performed live by a stellar cast of actor-musicians that includes Kerri Quinn, Cat Barter, Doireann McKenna and John Shayegh. Wednesday 24 October: Post-show talk with members of the Belfast music scene, chaired by Ciaran McQuillan. Tuesday 30 October: Post-show talk with playwright, composer, director and cast. Tickets for Huzzies available from The Win Tickets to Alfie The Littlest MAC on 028 9023 5053 6 at NI Scene Werewolf on October
WHAT WAS IT ABOUT IAN PAISLEY Emmy-award winning writer Ron Hutchinson was born in Northern Ireland, but spent his childhood in Coventry in England and currently lives in Los Angeles. Now he’s written a play about one of Northern Ireland’s most iconic and controversial political figures in Paisley and Me. Why? ‘Martin Lynch offered me a huge sum of money,’ Hutchinson says cheerfully. ‘I’ve not seen it yet, but he definitely offered it to me.’ Paisley and Me is the second installment in the Ulster Trilogy series by Green Shoot Productions, Lynch’s theatre company. It follows the first Ulster Trilogy play Brothers in Arms by crime novelist and IRA ‘blanket-man’ Sam Millar, which debuted early 2012. Hutchinson admits that when Lynch first approached him with the idea he was hesitant. Surely, he argued, there was too much distance between him and Northern Ireland for him to comment on
the politics? Lynch convinced him otherwise. Rather than a drawback, Hutchinson’s years away would let him be impartial. ‘I thought about that,’ Hutchinson says. ‘And, you know, my parents were both Protestants. They were married for 60 and they never fought about drink or money or anything like that. The only thing I ever saw they fight about was Ian Paisley.’ For Hutchinson it is one of the few Northern Irish issues that continues to exert much hold over him. He might retain a fondness for the place, but he ‘isn’t one of those exiles who holds the place close.’ And any ‘romantic notions’ he had about returning to his boyhood homes were dispelled when he returned to Belfast for a visit a few years ago. ‘I was walking through the places I used to walk, and play, as a child,’ he recalls. ‘It was bloody cold!’
See Paisley and Me at the Grand Opera House as part Belfast Festival at Queen’s Oct 30 - Nov 3. Or find out where to see it on tour at NI Scene.
THE FAMILY GHOSTS OF DRUMGLASS The Musgrave family of Drumglass Park died with the passing of the last remaining child, Henry. From a family of 11, no descendants were produced to carry on the blood line. In the darkness of the park, the ghosts of the past threaten to fragment the peace of the present that eludes them. The ancient trees of Drumglass surrender the secrets of the Musgrave family to those who trace the steps of the dead. But will we have to atone for treading on the longdormant spirits of those who went before? Incorporating cutting-edge sound and light installation, site-specific theatre company Kabosh present a haunting theatrical experience in this unique setting. Not for the fainthearted.
See The Ghosts of Drumglass as part of the Belfast Festival at Queen’s Wednesday 24 October to Wednesday 31October 2012
THUS SPAKE PATRICK QUINN Playwright Patrick Quinn’s play The Painter’s Hand debuts at Accidental Theatre’s Biscuit Tin Readings at the Ulster Hall on October 18. Quinn reveals that he got his inspiration for the play from his degree in English and History of Art. In one course he was studying Oscar Wilde’s The Portrait of
Dorian Grey, in the other all these beautiful old 18th century paintings. The Painter’s Hand is about obsession, entrapment and just a whiff of the supernatural. A hard-up young man is in the process of escaping his over-familiar landlady, when she makes him an offer he finds difficult to refuse. If he marries her, she’ll leave him her house in her will. Is she telling the truth? Will he try and hasten her into the arms of the Grim Reaper? You’ll have to go the reading to find out what happens.
HALLOWEEN HAUNTING IN DERRY ‘The difficult thing about writing ghost stories for the stage,’ author Ken McCormack says about his new play The Haunting, ‘is that you can’t just throw a white sheet over someone and say “there’s a ghost”. It’s just not on!’ If anyone should know, it’s McCormack. For the last four years the Derry~Londonderry writer, broadcaster and recently retired academic has crafted Halloween performances of ghostly chills, thrills and stories for the Derry~Londonderry Playhouse Theatre. Not, however, on Halloween night itself. Since as McCormack points out, ‘Derry goes mad for Halloween. On the night itself you wouldn’t be able to move on the streets, never mind get to the Playhouse.’ For 2012, however, the Playhouse Theatre’s director Pauline Ross asked McCormack to do something new. She wanted a brand new, full-length play. Although Ken was hesitant, citing the difficulty of staging a truly scary ghost story, she convinced him to give it a go. And so The Haunting – a tale of a young
man with a very unfortunate windfall from a debauched uncle – was born. Or, at least, a skeleton of it was. McCormack prefers to complete the narrative outline of the play, then go back and fill in the details after workshopping it with the actors. He is looking forward to getting stuck into that process with The Haunting, enthusing about the quality of the cast. ‘We’ve got great actors, great effects and great back-up from the Playhouse,’ McCormack says, adding that he is always confident of support from the theatre. ‘Whenever I work with the Playhouse anything I need or want, I get.’ This time what McCormack needs is a director, since he is staying ‘well away’ from that side of things. So, his main actress will be doing double-duty as director as well. McCormack is also hoping to tour The Haunting once it gets its debut performance under its belt. Even though that will be after the ghoulish peak of Halloween, he is confident that the play will still ‘work audiences up to a considerable state of alarm.
The Haunting will at the Derry~Londonderry Playhouse October 29 - 30 and The Win Tickets to Alfie The Littlest Beech Hill Hotel November 4 Werewolf on October 6 at NI Scene
MONKEY BUSINESS IN THE PLAYHOUSE THEATRE In Prodigal Theatre’s latest one-man musical show at the Derry~Londonderry Playhouse, Caruso and the Monkey House Trial, an opera singer is accused of the indiscriminate pinching of ladies bottoms in New York zoo. His defense? The monkey did it. It might sound a bit far-fetched, but it actually happened – and not so some community theatre star from Peoria either. In 1906 world-famous opera singer Enrico Caruso was arrested in New York for ‘annoying’ Mrs Hannah Graham, a respectable married woman. Monkey House Trial is the sequel to Caruso and the Quake, which had Caruso –played by Ignacio Jarquin in both – trying to get out of the city in the wake of the San Francisco earthquake. Both plays are set in 1906, with the Monkey House Trial set just months after Quake. Not a particularly good year for Caruso, but you can see why a playwright would be intrigued. Marshall’s interest in Caruso, however, isn’t just based on two
dramatic incidents. ‘Caruso is such an archetypal figure,’ he says. ‘He was an ordinary man who had an absolutely extraordinary life. He born poor in Naples and yet he dined with princes, kings and tsars. He was the first celebrity.’ Marshall points out that Caruso’s celebrity created a template that is still relevant today. Including how stars deal with a sex scandal. ‘The Dominique Strauss-Kahn trial was taking place when I was working on the play,’ he explains. ‘It struck me that a lot of the arguments the defense used – that a man in his position wouldn’t risk it – were the same ones used in Caruso’s trial.’ Historically, that argument didn’t work too well for Caruso. This Monkey House Trial, however, gives him a second chance. Marshall has written two endings and the audience get to play jury and vote Caruso innocent or guilty.
Caruso and the Monkey House Trial is at the Derry~Londonderry Playhouse on October 12
Ruby Sparks, vehicle for Zoe Kazan’s emergence as a writer/actor, is billed as a rom-com. Maybe it is, but under the skin there’s horror enough to make The Ring’s Samara give it an approving nod. Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano) is a onetime literary wunderkind. He published his first book at 19 ‘with acne still on his chin’ to national acclaim. Ten years down the line he sits down at his hipster type-writer, fingers poised and … nothing happens. Monkey Business Given an assignment by his therapist to just write something and let it bad, he writes about his literal dream-girl. Ruby Sparks from Dayton, Ohio – a freespirited artist who doesn’t always deal with life so well. Then one morning he wakes up one morning and Ruby is making him eggs in the kitchen. As meet-cutes go, it’s a doozy. The epitome of the manic-pixie-dreamgirl archetype, the free-spirited Ruby, all panties-less clubbing and late-night zombie marathons, is perfect for Calvin. Until she goes wrong.
Ruby Sparks is either the most unintentionally creepy film of the year or a brilliant subversion of the rom-com and MPDG tropes. Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, in their first project since the sixyear’s past Little Miss Sunshine, do a superlative job balancing the dissonance between genre and plot. As Ruby Kazan is raw, uncertain and brittle in her existence right from the start. The camera is always crawling right up into her face so the audience can see every twitch and red rim, a visual short-hand for close third-person narrative. As a writer Kazan pulls back from the edge at the last minute, giving an unearned nod to rom-com expectations. It’s a shame, since it undercuts some of what went before. Nevertheless, Ruby Sparks is one of the most unexpectedly brilliant films of 2012. A magic realist story about domestic abuse wrapped up in the flayed skin of a romcom. How can you not want to see that?
Ruby Sparks is at the Movie House from the 12 to the 18 October.
The Odd Marty Maguire
In the middle of the Crescent Arts Centre Marty Maguire leans over his coffee and cackles, ‘Guns don’t kill people. I DO’. He is in character, of course, as the somewhat homicidal Bronzebeard from the World of Warcraft game. ‘I really should add that to my resume,’ he remarks, sitting back. ‘Versatile’ is one of those catch-all phrases that actors use to describe themselves. Maguire really is. It is Maguire’s upcoming role, however, that he worries he might have been born to play, the neurotically fastidious Felix in The Odd Couple at Theatre at the Mill. ‘I look at some of the things that Felix does in the play,’ he admits, ‘and think “that sounds like me!”‘. Yet Maguire was originally invited to audition for the part of one of the poker buddies. He never got the chance. Director Guy Masterton, who also plays the other half of the ‘odd couple’ Oscar, took one look and asked him to read for Oscar instead.
‘Three hours later,’ Maguire says, ‘I was having press shots taken.’ Maguire, who was a big fan of the original film, has always wanted the chance to play the high-strung Felix, even though Oscar gets more stage-time. Yet, he admits, he was a bit worried about the contemporary relevance of The Odd Couple. It was written in 1964 after all, would it still be able to make a modern audience care? It didn’t worry him for long. ‘It is so well-constructed to is as fresh as if it was written last week,’ he says. Some of the references might not be bang up to date but, ‘divorce is still divorce’ and ‘people are still people’. ‘Felix comes into Oscar’s life like a whirlwind,’ Maguire says. ‘It is incredibly funny, but it is poignant too. There are some very touching moments between the two men.’
The Odd Couple is at the Theatre at the Mill from October 17-27.
An Epic Launch for Cinemagic This year’s Coca-Cola Cinemagic International Film and Television festival kicks off with a packed out question and answer session in one of the Odyssey Cinema theatres. Hosted by local filmmaker Brian Henry Martin, the man of the hour is none other than Ballymena’s own James Nesbitt – star of hit television shows such as Cold Feet and Murphy’s Law, not to mention his supporting role in Peter Jackson’s forthcoming and much anticipated epic, The Hobbit. Martin steers the interview slickly, with topics of conversation including Nesbitt’s latest television show (brainsurgery drama, Monroe), the benefits of drama school and (perhaps most interestingly) the actor’s choice to keep his distinct Northern Irish accent when leaving drama school at a time when other actors were encouraged to mask theirs. ‘Out of conflict springs creativity,’ Nesbitt muses. ‘I could always do other accents but I thought if there was a way to get the NI accent away from negativity, I should take it. I wanted to
make it more than something you just heard on the news.’ Expectedly there is much focus around the topic of The Hobbit. It turns out that, unbelievably, that Nesbitt hadn’t been keen on doing at first. Thankfully he saw sense and has had a blast working on the feature, playing Bofur the dwarf. He states that the experience was ‘difficult but ultimately life changing’ and ‘more of a journey than a career move’. Speaking to Nesbitt afterwards he admits that the experience wasn’t always plain sailing. Having moved his family out there for a year, he candidly states that at first they didn’t want to go. ‘They were heartbroken, but I knew it would work out okay. Once we got there and settled in they loved it and they’ll never forget it.’ The local-born ‘I’m thrilled to be here and it’s clear that the festival has gone from strength strength. a Win Tickets to toAlfie The It’s Littlest veryWerewolf importanton and brilliant6 time October at NI for Scene filmmaking here and to be involved with the filmmakers of the future is a privilege for me.
WELCOME TO HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA Forget all the bad press. Count Dracula, King of the Monsters, is really just a hard-working professional, doting Dad and kick-ass party planner (or, well, he thinks so anyhow). He is on the human blood-drinking wagon (‘You never know where they’ve been) and has spent the last 117 years hiding away from the human world in his ‘five-stake’ luxury Transylvanian resort. Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever (except him). Dracula’s daughter (Mavis) is about to turn 118 and is eager to escape her famous Dad’s bat shaped shadow. Obviously, this is an over-protective Dad’s worst nightmare. Dracula, however, has a plan, and a loyal staff of mostly competent zombies, to convince Mavis that the human world is just as horrible as he always told her. All Dracula has to do is lie to his daughter and then make it up to her by throwing her the best 118th birthday party ever, with all her monster ‘uncles and aunts’ in attendance. Oh, and stop her falling in love with the good-natured, if gormless, human who has managed to infiltrate the hotel.
Easier said than done. The real focus of the film is the budding bromance between Dracula and Johnny as the immortal vampire loosens up and the slacker admits that the last thing he wants to do is hurt him. In the end, Dracula comes through for his daughter and her beau, and realises that humans aren’t so bad. Even if they do claim he says ‘blah blah blah’. Hotel Transylvania doesn’t quite live up to the example set by ParaNorman, which was a kid’s horror animation with heart, guts and a few disembodied limbs. Still, Hotel Transylvania is a slick, scare-light bit of animation that makes good use of 3D. The characters are likable and even the cynical (such as certain reviewers) were kind of rooting for those crazy, undead/living kids to get together. The sassy, shrunken heads and the elderly Gremlin alone are worth the price of admission, a few large sodas and a tray of nachos. Hotel Transylvania opens on October 12 in Movie House cinemas