[NoHo Arts District, CA] – J-P Theatre Productions returns to the 2026 Hollywood Fringe Festival with A Haunting Revue II, an evening of original sci-fi and horror stories inspired by Rod Serling’s cult classic Night Gallery.
J-P Theatre Productions always come up with interesting themes for their shows. In the past, it has been ghost stories and the occult, but this year it’s sci-fi!!
A Haunting Revue II is three plays, all with wildly different journeys. We asked Aditya Putcha, one of the two J-P partners, to let us in on his secrets to success!
Hi Aditya! What is it about the Hollywood Fringe Festival that works so well for you and these stories you tell?
Fringe, by its very nature, is meant for aspiring playwrights, and I love the guerrilla atmosphere. Also, something as niche as what I’ve done these past two years – Night Gallery (or The Twilight Zone) on stage – is perfectly suited for something where the primary means of marketing is word-of-mouth and I can firsthand show everyone my passion. In the process, I help build the brand for the company I co-founded, J-P Theatre Productions.
Something as niche as Night Gallery on stage is perfectly suited to Hollywood Fringe, where word-of-mouth lets me share my passion directly with audiences.
What’s the favourite part of putting this production together for you?
Getting such a large cast and watching everyone bond with each other. Also, watching these three scripts (since this is an anthology with three stories) for which I was the primary writer flourish thanks to the talent of the two directors (my fellow J-P board members, Richard Page and Brendan Getches) and of the actors who are not only giving great performances but also come up with dialogue/character flourishes!
You’ve been doing these shows for a few years now, what do you feel you have learned about the process?
How my willingness to work around the clock for the show will get me huge crowds – and how people notice my boundless devotion to my production! I’ve also noticed that, although people consider making a profit on a black box show virtually impossible, you can absolutely get your money’s worth through the “comp swaps” Fringe encourages. Last year was win-win for me – I sold out my entire run (even winning the Best of Feury Sold Out Award) and got to attend over 40 other shows, many of which were great.
How did you choose these stories this year for A Haunting Revue II?
I was part of the Improvised Twilight Zone troupe the venue for this Fringe show, Impro Theatre, had from 2023-2025. All three of the segments in this anthology got their original inspiration from exercises in class.
- The first story’s seed was planted when we were given the prompt of being at a family reunion. My classmate decided to play an old man, so I decided I was his adult son, peeved over always being the unfavorite. The dad denied the accusation, only for his wife to come smugly say dinner was ready for the two of them to have with their two daughters. The son angrily yelled that he wasn’t invited – and then the Twilight Zone idea hit me. I was treated poorly because I was an extraterrestrial! Then the exercise ended with the opening narration The Twilight Zone is known for having Rod Serling provide.
I told Richard my idea, and he and I collaborated on a script, although we went with his idea of the alien instead of interacting with his human dad and stepmom, interacting with his human older brother and younger sister.
Essentially, we did a sequel to E.T. where E.T. and Elliott merged into one anthropomorphic being and then spent the next 20 years developing sibling rivalry with Michael and Gertie.
Alternatively, we did a modification of This Is Us where Randall, in addition to seemingly being favored by their mother over Kevin and Kate, is from another planet instead of being an African-American.
- The second story’s seed was planted with a prompt of two characters meeting up at a diner. It was Christmas Eve, and my character’s best friend was angry that I called him over in the cold when he was spending time with his fiancée, but I tried explaining that I didn’t want to be alone. That led to an argument about my asking too much. This was only supposed to be a “start” so we were stopped after about 10 minutes, but the instructor, Mike Rock, asked the class for ideas of what could happen next and one classmate suggested a twist ending that made me think, “Done! We have to tell this story.”
I wanted to keep my own character while having Brendan play the friend, since he was about to get married in real life. He and I are 12 years apart, so I decided that when he was a child I was his “Big Brother,” but his life turned out fabulously and mine depressingly. Brendan had great ideas on how to strengthen the conflict and Richard has really elevated the piece with his direction.
- The third story’s origins trace to a class that happened right after I rewatched The Twilight Zone episode “The Howling Man”. That episode certainly had an inspired trope – the main character begins the story monologuing about what an awful thing happened. The class was told to do an episode and given some airplane-related suggestion. Not being big on planes, I decided the timing was perfect. I remained offstage when the episode started, and I did a whole monologue into the microphone about how I was constantly replaying that day over and over in my head, agonizing over whether I could have done anything differently, without ever specifying what happened “that day”. Since only one of my classmates was on stage, by default it became his inner monologue. As the episode went on a few classmates made “big offers”, as they’re called in improv, which made it all a story I loved.
That everyone loved, in fact, and people gave me a ton of credit for the way I set the stage with that opening monologue. I decided to put in the work to turn it into a full short play. Richard’s script revisions, his direction, and the terrific performances of the cast (the lead actor, John Fukuda, is appropriately another Twilight Zone improv troupe alumnus), have turned it into something incredible. Come watch!
Special shoutout to those Twilight Zone castmates who were part of the exercises providing the initial kernels of this trilogy: Eliot Hochberg, Tyler Weil, Amanda Gish, Monica Alquetz, Nikki Zapanta, and Luke Knox.
Do you tend to work with the same group of actors or do you like to cast the roles from outside your circle?
I love to work with the same group of actors and build rapport. My dream is for J-P Theatre Productions to eventually have dozens of members devoted to performing in our shows and happy to volunteer their time to help make it succeed.
You have to build such things from the ground up, of course. Currently I’m very happy to have two fellow board members as talented and devoted as Richard and Brendan, and in A Haunting Revue II, we also have a great performance from one of our most loyal collaborators, Luc Rosenthal.
Otherwise it’s all new people. The ones I haven’t mentioned already – Liam Koji, John Klenk, Lauren Alexandra, Isabella Ersoz, Rachel Sedlak, Lela Howard-Trainer, Mare Mossholder, Adam McCarthy – are all doing wonderful work and I would be honored if they want to perform with us again in the future.
If you had advice to give burgeoning theatre writers, directors or producers, what would you tell them?
Be willing to work 24-7 for your dream. We sold out our entire run as of yesterday, three days before our first performance. I’ll humble brag that I’ve had a reputation since last year as a producer who will not stop advocating for his work.
I have huge dreams of my plays eventually finding major publishers and getting professional productions, but I’m competing with countless people who have such dreams. Whatever happens in the future, it will not be due to lack of effort on my part!
Be willing to work 24-7 for your dream
Thank you, Aditya! Amazing insight and advice. While we rush around seeing all these wonderful Fringe shows, we can easily forget all the effort and heartbreak that goes into making the phenomenal variety of plays.
What:
You can find A Haunting Revue II playing during The Hollywood Fringe all month!
Tickets:
https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/14192?tab=details
Where:
Actors Improv Studio
1727 N Vermont Ave 2nd floor, Los Feliz
When:
Saturday, June 6 at 7:00 PM
Sunday, June 14 at 2:00 PM
Thursday, June 18 at 8:00 PM
Tuesday, June 23 at 8:00 PM
Friday, June 26 at 9:45 PM
Check out more 2026 Hollywood Fringe Festival Reviews and Interviews>>