"I was reading a book by Eric Schaefer called Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!, about these scare films from the '20s, '30s, '40s and '50s, so as a filmmaker I was interested in making a so-called exploitation film," says director John Aden. "So my wife, Ellen, and I started kicking around topics, and she mentioned gay marriage, and then a month later the ruling from the Massachusetts Supreme Court came down, and that made an obvious topic."
"So he gave me a bulleted list of the components of one of these films -- they all have a crusader and a charlatan and an ingenue; it was all very formulaic and pedantic -- and I took the topic and just plugged in what I thought would tell the story," adds playwright Ellen Graham, who wrote the script and plays one scary psychotherapist.
The husband-and-wife duo have been making films in Denver since 2003, including The Gulon and Tearfully So, and on Thursday, October 5, they bring Brides to the Bug Theatre, 3654 Navajo Street, just in time to get people thinking and talking about Amendment 43 and Referendum I. Tickets are $7, and the show starts at 8 p.m. Be sure to stick around afterward: Judy Calhoun, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center of Colorado, will host a discussion of Ref I. And you don't want to miss the "hedonistic homosexual dance party"!