The year is 1599. Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre has just been completed, and the playwright’s latest masterpiece, Henry V, is about to open.But while Shakespeare and his company are busy fending off rivals and appeasing Queen Elizabeth I and her court, things in London are taking a sinister turn. An affliction spreads through the streets, leaving hungry hordes of the awakened dead behind. Soon the Globe is surrounded, and Shakespeare and Company must fight for their lives.

City Circle Acting Company of Coralville is kicking off its fall season with William Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead, directed by Patrick DuLaney. Performances will run Friday through Oct. 18at the Coralville Center for the Performing Arts, 1301 Fifth St.

“You come for the zombies and stay for the Shakespeare,” DuLaney said.

This is the fifth play DuLaney has directed for City Circle, though he has been directing professionally for about 10 years as a complement to an acting career spanning two decades. He said his experience as an actor contributes substantially to his success as a director.

“There are a lot of directors that have ‘high concept’ ideas, but I don’t,” he said. “I enjoy talking to actors. What I bring to the table is an understanding of how an actor works and what an actor needs.”

Although the topic may make the play seem like a comedy at first glance, the humor is played straight; the mood is set by the more serious drama, especially in the fight scenes, DuLaney said.

To make these scenes come to life, DuLaney enlisted the help of a professional fight choreographer and a professional makeup artist.

Andrew Burlagio has been doing makeup and special effects for six years, a hobby he picked up during his time at Kirkwood Community College. His talent for visual effects makes him invaluable for a production featuring zombies and all the blood and gore that inherently accompany them. Despite never having done zombie work prior to this show, he was able to develop a process to make the zombies come to life.

“If you mix gelatin, glycerin, and water, it creates a fluid, liquidy substance that dries as rubber on the skin,” he said. “You can then cut into it and apply makeup over it to simulate cuts and gashes.”

The process seems daunting, but in just 15 to 20 minutes, Burlagio has a zombie fully made-up and ready to charge into battle.

Meeting the zombies is the unlikely hero, Shakespeare. Shakespeare isn’t traditionally seen as an action hero, but Kevin Moore is more than up to the challenge of forging him into one.

Moore has performed in countless plays since he auditioned for his high school’s production of *Guys and Dolls* several years ago and discovered he had a passion for acting.

Moore is a huge fan of Shakespeare, “the most magical playwright in western history,” and he is excited to play the man who wrote Hamlet, his favorite play. He was encouraged to audition by Krista Neumann, playing Queen Elizabeth I. After reading the script, he knew he had to be involved.

“It’s about Shakespeare, which I love; there’s a lot of stage fighting, which I love; and there are zombies, which I love,” he said. “So it was kind of a hat trick for me.”

THEATER
What: William Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Oct. 18
Where: Coralville Center for the Performing Arts, 1301 Fifth St.