This play is a scream, really

By Cindy Landrum  

OCTOBER 14, 2010 12:16 p.m. (0)

Converse College’s Palmetto Players want to cash in on the growing popularity of Halloween.

They’ll run a haunted house in the Cleveland Alumni House, a house across the street from the campus entrance that was built in 1906 and was owned by some of Spartanburg’s most prominent families.

But this won’t be your typical haunted house.

“Nocturne for Carpathia” tells a story, which is fitting considering the Palmetto Players is a theatrical group.

“It is part play, part haunted house,” said Emily Thomas, a senior theater and psychology major from Clemson. “It’s a scripted haunted house.”

And the Cleveland Alumni House is the perfect venue, she said.

“It’s a three-story building and it’s kind of creepy on its own,” Thomas said.

The Palmetto Players held their first scripted haunted house last year, adapting one of professor Brent Glenn’s plays, “The Anointing of Dracula” into Halloween entertainment for about 500 ticket-buyers.

“People are excited about getting scared,” she said.

“Nocturne for Carpathia” is a collection of vignettes told by five vampires who are all descendants of Dracula. “All of these vampires come together to celebrate where they came from, which is Romania and Dracula,” Thomas said. “They are the personal stories of how they turned into vampires, kind of a dark celebration of their vampire lives.”

Thomas wrote “Nocturne for Carpathia,” a production that is recommended for mature audiences or older children who don’t get scared easily. There is some mild language and some sexual innuendo in the script, although there is no violence.

Writing the script was challenging for two reasons, Thomas said.

First, there is the time limitation, something writers of traditional scripts don’t have to deal with as much, she said.

“You can’t expect people to stand for the length of a regular play,” she said.

“Nocturne for Carpathia” takes about 35 minutes.

Second, because it is being staged in an historic house, “Nocturne for Carpathia” can’t rely on stage lighting or complex scenery, Thomas said.

“You have to develop dialogue and interaction between characters,” she said. “It’s both a challenge and a pleasure. You have to put a lot of focus into the language.”

But that doesn’t mean the cast, which includes 15 Converse College students and one male, won’t have any help from lights, she said.

Thomas said they depend on ambient lighting and colored light bulbs. They also can put gels over conventional residential lighting to create the right atmosphere. They’ll also use a lot of sound effects.

As ticket holders go from room to room, they’ll hear a story of a different vampire, Thomas said.

“It’s very unsettling and creepy,” she said. “There are moments of frightening. We were after a pervasive creepiness.”

Auditions were held for the haunted house in the beginning of September.

Before the actor and actresses started running lines, they had to develop the physical moves of their characters.

“It was definitely challenging at the beginning,” Thomas said. “The characters have a different interaction with the audience. When you’re on stage, there’s a buffer of six to 10 feet. If you’re in the same room like we are in the haunted house, you could be a foot or two away. You’ve got to respect the space and continue to be your character. It’s a different type of acting.”

The Palmetto Players hope their version of a haunted house will stick with their audience longer than a typical haunted house.

“With typical haunted houses, it’s frightening when you’re in it, but afterward, it’s gone,” she said. “If there’s a story behind something, it tends to stay with people. When you see this, it will be more of a theatrical experience.”

Thomas said the Palmetto Players hope that will pique the interest of people who otherwise would not come to a regular play.

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