UPPER TOWNSHIP — Longtime rocker Suzé DiPietro is inviting the public to an immersive rock opera demo this Sunday at Ludlam Brewery in Woodbine.
The free event is an introduction for “Grendel’s Lair,” a dark rock opera DiPietro and Frank Gorgo built around a 22-song concept album.
The character-driven rock opera is set inside a nightclub, the fictional Grendel’s Lair, filling in for The Galaxy, a well known 1970s and ’80s heavy metal venue in Somerdale where DiPietro performed with an all-girl band. The venue is almost a character itself, she said.
The listening party will be in a private room at the brewery designed to evoke a club feel, complete with a bouncer checking IDs. The bouncer is going to have a hand stamp “and give you the flavor of what it was like in the ’80s when you would show up at a bar.
“We think of this as our demo. This isn’t the final product,” the Upper Township resident explained of the project. “This is going to be a small production, but it’s intimate and interactive. There’s no fourth wall. The performers move through the audience like they’re part of it. That’s our plan for it.”
DiPietro has some experience with turning music into production, dating back to the 1980s at the University of Pennsylvania. She put on a production of “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust,” a David Bowie album, for her senior thesis for her theater degree, with the OK from Bowie’s management company.
She had a three-week run of the production at a South Street venue in Philadelphia called Grendel’s Lair.
DiPietro, who has played in various bands over the years, including that all-girl one called Fake ID in the ’80s, said she always wanted to write her own rock opera.
“And so, back in 2000, I did and named it ‘Grendel’s Lair,’ even though it’s based on The Galaxy,” she said. “Let’s face it, Grendel’s Lair is far more sexy and alluring than The Galaxy as a title.”
She connected with Gorgo for the project, but there were false starts here and there over the years and barriers including the high expense of paying musicians to record and paying for a recording studio. She and Gorgo recorded the vocals with some help from Dean Howe, and her band members helped out.
DiPietro also got some advice from Larry Magid, known for his Electric Factory concerts, whom she said liked what he heard, “and this is where it gets really kind of crazy.”
She and Gorgo put all their music through an AI software package that allowed them to add character voices, blend multiple singers “and it just exploded from there with the imagery and videos.” (Check out the short video online at https://grendelslair.net or on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEa7zLEIkV8)
“I’ve done a lot of good things, fun, great things, but this is the most amazing thing I have ever done,” DiPietro said, “and I have learned skills that I never knew I could.”
What patrons will see at the Ludlam Brewery (2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, April 26, at 2051 Dennisville-Petersburg Road, Woodbine) is what they consider a demo.
They will enter the room at Ludlam. There will be a big TV screen and “a whole bunch of videos that we’ve made about the different songs,” and overhead the music from a playlist from the rock opera.
People will be able to sit there and watch and listen to some of the music. It will almost be like sitting inside Grendel’s Lair.
There also will be food and a cash bar.
There is no cost for the event, but DiPietro asks people to bring canned goods they will donate to the food pantry in Ocean City.
“We’re going to do the opening clip, which is called ‘Welcome to My Nightmare,’” she said. “It’s very cool. It sets it up.” And then they’ll do a Q&A session guided by her son, Colin Stewart, owner of Five Tribes Cinema Productions.
This will be an abridged version of “Grendel’s Lair.” DiPietro and Gorgo will pick from among the 22 songs to give the audience a flavor of the production. Consider it an introduction to “Grendel’s Lair,” the rock opera they hope will be produced professionally in total either on stage or adapted as a movie.
For historical perspective, the Grendel’s Lair name comes from the Old English epic poem “Beowulf” that is a thousand years old, and “Grendel,” a modern book by late author John Gardner, a retelling of the tale of “Beowulf,” a heroic warrior, from the perspective of Grendel, a descendant of biblical Cain.
The historical perspective, however, is not the plot of the rock opera.
“The Lair itself is really the point,” DiPietro explains. “It functions almost like a character …. It’s less about ‘Beowulf’ and more about what happens inside the walls” of the club.
DiPietro is finishing putting “Grendel’s Lair” into book form, because it will be easier for studios to pick up and learn about the project.
“So we have the play, we have the album and we’re going to have a novella, because it’s only 135 pages long,” she said. The book will launch in the fall.
Patrons will be able to access a QR code at the venue so they can check out the website and her book.
The album is also streaming in iTunes and Spotify. (See link on the story online at ocnjsentinel.com.)
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff