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Production Tips for The Baloney, the Pickle, the Zombies, and Other Things I Hide From My Mother

by Bradley Walton

“What are you doing with the baloney?” That’s the question Emma asks her big brother Trevor when she finds him in the kitchen at 2 A.M.

But Trevor is up to much more than a late night snack — he’s bringing food to life with experiments he hopes will lead to the creation of zombies he can sell as cheap laborers.

Together with his living baloney-minon, Meyer, Trevor is about to embark on a night in which he will face an angry neighbor, be questioned by police, bring a pickle to life, and discover that his food may actually be smarter than he is... all while trying to keep everything secret from his mother and little sister.

Comedy Black Comedy

Average Producer Rating:

Tips from past Producers

Requires a couple very strong actors, some creative costuming (we used red/pink foam pieces for the baloney - attached together with Velcro strips - and an actual pickle costume for Vlad), and a somewhat extensive set, so have a good-sized crew to help you. Keep the pace fast and energy high and it'll be great.

I built the baloney costume out of foam packing material and duct tape. It was easy and flexible, and most of all cheap.

The costumes for the baloney and pickle were challenging. We finally settled on pink and green body suits and they worked well for this performance. I was concerned about the death of the police officer and how the audience would react. So I did my best to make the officer as unlikeable as possible and his death as silly and ridiculous as possible. When Trevor cuts into the pickle behind the kitchen island (counter), we used green slime purchased from a store to toss out and land on the floor. It gave Meyer a lot of physical comedy when I had Trevor give him a paper towel and motioned Meyer to clean it up. I had Meyer end up putting into the fridge and was pleasantly surprised when the slime started to ooze out from the fridge. Speaking of the fridge, a real fridge takes up a lot of space so I went to the local appliance store and asked if they had an old fridge door I could use. They were very generous and said to help myself to anything I could use in their dumpster. I found an old fridge and took the door and all the hinging hardware. I made a simple frame, painted it white and attached the door and it worked great.