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Mark Sinongco thought there was a mistake when he was emailed that he had landed the lead role of Ash in Evil Dead: The Musical.

It was not the part he’d had in mind. He had figured he was more suited for the roles of Ed, Jake and Scott, who are decidedly less active than the chainsaw-wielding Ash when it comes to battling demons in the musical and film franchise it is based on.

Like many fans, Sinongco had always associated Ash with Bruce Campbell, the 6’2, lantern-jawed, B-movie titan who played the character in the 1981 original film, its 1987 and 1992 sequels Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness and for three seasons of the STARZ series Ash vs. Evil Dead.

“I thought Ash was Bruce Campbell, this tall man,” says Sinongco, in an interview with Postmedia while on a break from rehearsals for the Alberta Theatre Projects production. “I’m a solid 5’4. When I got the email offer for me to play Ash, I went, ‘Huh? Is this a typo?’ ”

Still, the Edmonton-based Filipino-Canadian actor decided he was up for the challenge.

“For me, when I’m approaching this role, it’s seeing how it sits in my body, and I just try to play it truthfully but also making nods to the Bruce Campbell-ness of it all, having those elements: manly, the cockiness that he has at least in (Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness). That is kind of what people are expecting. At the same time, I’m giving it my own flavour.”

This echoes the spirit with which the original concept of Evil Dead: The Musical was developed. Created in Toronto in 2003, it was meant as a creative homage to the gory and funny cinema that Sam Raimi created with the original, which focused on five college students trapped in a remote cabin in the woods after unleashing an evil force that starts turning them into demons.

It was also meant to attract a new type of theatregoer. By 2003, there was already a long history of Broadway-style musicals being based on unlikely sources, from Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in the late 1970s, to Howard Ashman’s Little Shop of Horrors a few years later and 1993’s Zombie Prom. While the “anything-goes” approach to musicals was fully established, there was still a certain contingent who were not going to the theatre. The blood, guts and irreverent humour of Evil Dead: The Musical was meant to appeal to young, red-blooded males who were avoiding an evening of traditional song and dance like it was a zombie plague. George Reinblatt, a comedy writer who penned the book and lyrics for the show, was looking to rattle some cages. He didn’t bother looking for approval from the normal channels in Toronto’s theatre scene before launching the show at the Fringe Festival. It became a hit, part of a group of musicals alongside The Toxic Avenger and Reefer Madness that took the genre into even whackier territory.

Sinongco began starring in high school productions while attending M.E. LaZerte in Edmonton, but it wasn’t until he enrolled in the Canadian College of Performing Arts in Victoria, B.C., that he did his first musical. In his first year, he performed in George Gershwin’s Crazy for You and a year later took on another iconic character from a 1980’s movie: Ren in Footloose.

Since then, Sinongco seems to have carved out a bit of a niche performing in an array of irreverent theatre pieces. He has played Rocky in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Edgar the Bat Boy in Bat Boy: The Musical and Tobias in Sweeney Todd. He even played Tyler Shandro as a blond, afroed, short-shorts-wearing antagonist in Grindstone Theatre’s 2022 musical Jason Kenney’s Hot Boy Summer.

Still, Evil Dead offers some unique challenges for the actor. While belting out showtunes such as the soaring ballad I Am Not a Killer and catchy but less-nuanced What the (expletive) Was That?, Sinongco will be dodging spurting fountains of blood and other gore. At the time of this interview, rehearsals were about to reach a messy phase.

“I’ve done a Fringe production of Bat Boy, which was a horror-comedy as well,” he says. “There’s a bit of blood, but not to the same degree as Evil Dead. We are actually coming into tech (rehearsals) in a couple of days, where we are going to be playing with blood or some liquids on the stage to try out and see how we navigate that. It’s going to be pretty technical. We’ve got mics, we’ve got floors we need to walk on, costumes that will be drenched by the end of the show. It’s very unique. You don’t see a lot of that in commercial musical theatre.”

When Evil Dead: The Musical opens at Martha Cohen Theatre stage on Oct. 13, audiences will also get an eyeful of blood and guts. Some will get more than that. Audiences in the Splatter Zone will actually sit on stage during the performance and will indeed get splattered. ATP has issued an audience advisory suggesting the show — which also includes a good deal of f-bombs and sexual themes — is not suitable for those under 16. “If you experience adverse effects at the sight of blood, we do not recommend you attend this show,” it reads. The Splatter Zone is currently sold out for the entire run.

“Fans of the movies are going to catch all the references, all the iconic lines from the movies.” If you are someone who hasn’t seen the movies, I think you are also going to have a good time because it’s just so ridiculous. There’s going to be so much blood. If you are not getting splattered on, you’re going to be laughing at somebody who is.”

Alberta Theatre Projects’ Evil Dead: The Musical will run from Oct. 13 to Nov. 14 at the Martha Cohen Theatre.