American Stage’s next play is a ‘Zombieland’-style adventure at St. Pete’s Boyd Hill Nature Preserve

Remember how the 2009 film, “Zombieland” begins with a zombie chasing a guy across a football field while Jesse Eisenberg narrates?

“Why am I alive when everyone around me has turned to meat?” he queries. “It’s because of my list of rules. Rule number one for surviving Zombieland: Cardio.”

And cardio is what American Stage delivers in its backwoods rendition of “10 Ways to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse” happening this month when actors walk ticket holders down a one-mile trail through Boyd Hill Nature Preserve at night, giving them tips on surviving a zombie apocalypse.

Tickets to Tales By Twilight: “10 Ways to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse” happening Friday-Sunday, Jan. 12-14 at St. Petersburg’s Boyd Hill Nature Preserve start at $38.

There will be zombies at the series, which runs through Jan. 18, but they won’t be chasing you. Don Zolidis’ 30-35 min play, like “Zombieland,” is a comedy.
Zolidis wrote nature into the script, making Boyd Hill, situated in the heart of St. Pete, an ideal location for the performance.

The same holds true for Mark Twain’s “The Diaries of Adam and Eve,” which Ron Fitzerald adapted for the stage. In this case, Boyd Hill becomes the Garden of Eden, the setting for a comedic exploration of relationships between men and women, Feb. 2-18.

Both installments of Tales By Twilight are part of American Stage’s “Beyond the Stage” program, which started with Nassim Soleimanpour’s “White Rabbit, Red Rabbit” in November 2023.

The goal of the program,—which is at Boyd Hill through Feb. 28—is to make theater more accessible to Tampa Bay residents by engaging people where they are—in their neighborhood. Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.

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