Bousman contacted her through her MySpace account, flaunting his “Saw” credentials, she asked her sister Makenzie for her advice Makenzie, who appeared in the original “Saw” movie, had never heard of him. Steve WilkieĪlexa Vega, who plays Shilo, the invalid daughter of the organ-repo man, required more persuading. Sarah Brightman, who plays an opera diva with mechanical eyes in Repo! The Genetic Opera. Credit. Bousman sold the concept to Mark Burg, a producer of the “Saw” franchise. Bousman finished work on “Saw III,” he recruited several members of that film’s cast and crew to produce a short concept film based on two songs from “Repo!” After inviting agents and producers to watch the 10-minute reel at the offices of the Endeavor Agency in Beverly Hills, Mr. Bousman said: “Producers came to me and said, ‘Darren, what’s the next movie you want to do?’ And I said, ‘Repo!’ And they said, ‘Absolutely not.’ ” Bousman’s filmmaking career began to take off, he was frustrated in his attempts to turn the opera into a motion picture.

Smith continued to refine and restage the show.īut as Mr. Bousman directed that incarnation of “Repo!,” which played at the John Raitt Theater (since renamed the Paul Gleason Theater), later selling the screenplay that would become “Saw II,” while Mr. “We were immediately like, ‘This is cool.’ ”

“He talked about staging fake repossessions on the street in front of the theater,” Mr. “And Terrance and I are thinking we’ve heard this stuff before.” But further conversations with Mr. “He came and told us right off the bat, ‘I was born to direct this musical,’ ” Mr. Bousman, then 23, who had no professional directing experience but plenty of enthusiasm. As they searched for a director, they were introduced to Mr. Zdunich decided to stage an expanded, full-length version of the opera, now known as “Repo!,” at a proper theater in Los Angeles. “From that I thought: What if we were in the future?” “I’d see a lot of people basically getting things repossessed, and a lot of people with credit problems,” Mr. Zdunich’s affinity for macabre entertainments in the Grand Guignol tradition and to Mr. Among their most popular works was an abbreviated rock opera called “The Necromerchant’s Debt,” about a grave robber who comments on society’s underbelly through its characters, such as a man who repossesses organs for a living.

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