Chicago’s role in the development of 20th-century literature is well-known: the city has nurtured writers as different as Nelson Algren and L. Frank Baum, and Poetry magazine, founded here in 1912, published new work by talents ranging from Pound and Yeats to John Ashbery and Gwendolyn Brooks.
“I didn’t discover Lovecraft till I was in my 20s, but when I did I felt an immediate kinship,” says Sherman, a 43-year-old British expat. “As a schoolboy in Nottingham, I would watch the great Hammer horror films on late-night TV. I was also writing horror stories about monsters. I invented a character called Super Bat who was from the Light World and had to fight creatures from the Dark World like Evil Eyes. I got so deeply into it that the headmaster had to call my mam to ask her if everything was all right at home.”
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“Chicago needs another theater like it needs a hole in the head,” acknowledges Christensen. But WildClaw hopes to set itself apart by virtue of its niche: “Bringing Horror and the Supernatural to the Chicago Stage.” As artistic director, Sherman is committed to overcoming the stereotype of horror as gross-out entertainment by creating atmospheric, artistic work with literary substance.
But Sherman and Christensen don’t want to just appeal to a cult core. “We’re having fun, but we take our horror seriously. Too often horror ends up being the redheaded stepchild of any art form, be it theater, film, the visual arts, whatever,” says Christensen. “Horror makes money, but it don’t get no respect. We want it to get respect.”v
