IV: Charles Manson

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

Panem et circenses ... I won't go there.

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  Charles Manson: Summer of Hate – The Musical
  A musical trip between L.A. and the Death Valley
  Directed by Stefan Pucher


*Charles Manson – the name is synonymous with an American nightmare. 
While Woodstock was celebrating the ‘summer of love’ in 1969, Manson 
became a gravedigger, condemning his followers to brutal ritualistic 
murders in the Hollywood Hills. *
Lesser known than the demonic seducer is the failed musician Charles 
Manson. After spending half his life in prison, Manson emerged onto San 
Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury scene in 1967, before travelling to Los 
Angeles, the economic and cultural epi-centre of pop culture towards the 
end of the Sixties. Manson’s ‘Family’, a commune of young,  
predominantly female outcasts from prosperous America, saw many stars 
come in and out – greats of the music scene including Dennis Wilson of 
the Beach Boys, Neil Young and producer Terry Melcher all sponsored the 
charismatic singer songwriter.  The sexual availability of his female 
followers and drugs served not only as currency for access to Hollywood 
royalty, but were also Manson’s most important instrument of power 
within the ‘Family’. While his music career failed, as ‘band leader’ he 
experienced similar adoration to a pop star. When he relocated the core 
‘Family’ to a disused Western movie ranch in Death Valley, Manson and 
his followers prepared themselves for ‘Helter Skelter’, the final race 
war that Manson believed was foretold in detail in The Beatles’ ‘White 
Album’.

*Director Stefan Pucher stages a musical trip between L.A. and the Death 
Valley, hippy ideals and the death cult, the excesses of rock star life 
and the means of finding food from the rubbish bins of American 
civilisation.*

*World premiere on 26th September at Thalia Theater*

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