Last month, I spent 19 of the 31 nights in a cold, dusty,
decomposing factory basement. Why would
I do such a thing? Well, for starters, to scare the crap out of 10,000
people. But, more importantly, I spent
these nights with a group of incredible people, and got to explore my
creativity in ways I had never been able to before.
Dress Rehearsals
While I had previously attended a build shift (at which I
put a screw gun through my finger, OUCH!), I began my acting experience at the Haunted
Basement with a dance lesson. One of the
rooms was scheduled to be a 1920s dance marathon, so we learned the Charleston
and some basic East Coast swing.
Later, we got into makeup and got ready to try out our new
moves on some willing sample patrons.
For me, the dance hall was the perfect place to start. Our starting concept was based on events that
happened in the 20’s and 30’s where people would compete in dance marathons
that went on for months. We were
expected to act as if we had been dancing for years, and if we stopped,
something very, very bad would happen to us.
Working in this room set the tone for my entire Basement
experience. For the past several months,
I had been working on becoming less shy, and more comfortable in my own
skin. Throwing myself in an environment
where I had to dance, touch other actors, touch patrons, and move to express a
particular idea was quite the test for me. I genuinely don’t know why I was
able to throw myself into this experience so completely, but I am so grateful
that I was. I think I knew from the very
start that the only way to be effective in this setting was to give everything
to it. The only people who looked silly
were the ones who didn’t commit to what they were doing.
I spent two nights in the dance hall, working closely with
others to get the concept to work. We ended up changing it entirely by the time
the run started. I spent another dress
rehearsal in Nervous Nellies, which I will discuss at length later, and one
night in the Clown Exit. The night in the Clown Exit I learned how important it
is to learn to work with your scene partner, because when that chemistry is
off, the experience is unpleasant.
Performances
It’s more useful for me to think of the nights based on what
character I played, rather than to go through them chronologically.
Bears!
I spent one night working in the Change-O Room. This was a
room that patrons would visit three times, and served a very important traffic
control function. Patrons came to the Change-O from the Slaughterhouse. We’d
guide them into the Nursery, greet them on the other side, guide them into
Marionettes, and then send them into the Playroom. Change-O was a challenging
room for me. It was probably the least
physical room I worked in, and had very little physical contact with the
patrons, but holy crap was it disorienting! The Change-O Room’s soundtrack had
a lot of dubstep and strange noises, and was played very loud. The room was lit by a strobe light, and had
streamers hanging from the ceiling, obscuring visibility except for the paths between
the rooms. The streamers stuck on my
mask and blocked my vision frequently, and I found myself covering my eyes
between groups to lessen the effect of the strobe lights.
Change-O was both frustrating and extremely rewarding. It was frustration because of the
disorientation, and because I had to work pretty hard to control the patrons.
Once we’d scared them once, it was very difficult to get them to follow us! The
scares were so rewarding though. I’m not
entirely sure why the bear costume was so frightening, but people really
responded to it. All I had to do was
appear out of the streamers and I’d get some great screams! My favorite was a
late middle aged man who just kept screaming “PLEASE DON’T LET IT TOUCH ME! I JUST
DON’T WANT IT TO TOUCH ME!”
The Office
I spent one night as an office wonk. I’m not sure what all went on in the actual
office (although I’m sure it was inappropriate and scary in all the best
ways!), because I worked the hallway that lead patrons to see The Boss. This was a good night, but also a learning
experience. It was a good night because,
like in Change-O, I could get great scares for minimum efforts. The hallway was
very, very dark. All I had to do was turn from facing the wall to facing the
patrons, and they’d scream! However, I
was quickly confronted with one of my weaknesses – dialogue. Any time I
attempted to talk to the patrons, I sounded stilted and fake, and the patrons
knew it immediately. It had the same
effect as turning on the lights would have. The mood was destroyed
instantly. Thankfully, this was a role
where I could be silent and effective.
The Slaughterhouse
The night I worked in the Slaughterhouse was a tough one for
me. I was not feeling well that night,
and the Slaughterhouse was probably the dustiest room in the whole
Basement. The Slaughterhouse also had a
really challenging physicality. For one, the interaction with the patrons was
very aggressive. We grabbed their faces, inspected their bodies, and pulled
them through the room. It was also exhausting to work the meat grinder. I’d put the patron in the chair, spin them
around, pull the rope to turn the chair into a slide, and then reset it for the
next patron. Frequently we’d let all
four patrons in the group go down the slide, because it was so scary and
fun! Eventually I found my groove in
this room, but it was a battle to get there.
The Clown Exit
With the exception of my less than stellar dress rehearsal
experience, my nights in the Clown Exit were probably the most fun I had in the
Basement. My scene partner both times was a girl who was very short and afraid
of heights, so I got to play in the loft the entire time. The loft was about six feet in the air, and
had a hole where I could stick my head and arms down and touch the
patrons. This worked really well for me.
My scene partner was excellent with creepy and weird dialogue, and I could just
play off what she and the patrons said to time my scares. For example, one guy
came in and was trying to get past my scene partner. He said, “I can out-juke
her!” I reached down, grabbed his head, and said, “You can’t out-juke me!” The
patron fell to the floor. Another time, my scene partner told a scared patron, “Don’t
worry, I’m not a scary clown!” I reached down and said “But I AM a scary clown!” It was so energizing to get those scares
right with the timing, and to watch my scene partner do her thing.
The Playroom
I worked in the Playroom four nights. I had an absolute
blast in this room. I’m positive that I
would have been unable to work this room effectively six months ago. This room required a great deal of commitment
and surrender to being silly. I was
quite loud in this room, teaching patrons the best game EVER (Rock, Paper,
Staples, played with an unloaded staple gun. Staples always wins!) and letting
them go through my blanket fort. My last
night in this room was an illustration of how far I’ve come. I had become very comfortable in the room,
and with playing with the patrons. I’m
pretty sure that I drew on about 75% of the patrons who came through that
night. I even kissed one guy on the
cheek! My scene partner, however, was visibly uncomfortable. I tried to help her as much as I could, but
it was clear to be that she was just unable to let go and commit to the moment.
She acted like people sometimes act when they are playing with kids, instead of
actually acting like a kid. As I watched her struggle, I realized how easily
that could have been me. I am so
grateful that it wasn’t.
The Nervous Nellies
I spent 7 performance nights and one dress rehearsal in the
Nervous Nellies room. I truly consider it my home in the Basement. Nervous Nelllies was a big hallway with a
room off either side. We blocked off the
end of the hallway with a large lighted cloud mural. Unbeknownst to the patrons, the door to the
next room was through this mural. Depending
on the night, the actors would give more or less help to the patrons in finding
the door. The actors walked around
exhibiting various tics and rambling nonsense.
It was in Nellies that I truly found a place to explore and
grow creatively. It was an incredibly
cathartic experience for me. As someone who has struggled with anxiety for a large
portion of her life, even experiencing panic attacks at times, it was
incredibly empowering to act out those feelings – to breathe heavily, to pace,
to scratch compulsively – and be in total control of them. To be able to reach within myself and feel
those feelings, but have the choice to turn them off when I was finished with
them was like some kind of behavioral therapy.
I don’t know whether that had an effect on my ability to relax and feel
confident in the Basement, but it certainly couldn’t have hurt!
Because I felt so comfortable accessing those feelings, I
was able to explore different means of expressing them, and my character
changed every time I was in the room. I
took feedback and found inspiration in my scene partners, and a couple times
felt a jolt of inspiration myself. There
was no better feeling to me than to try something new and feel it working on
the patrons. By the final performance, I
had experimented with leading around male patrons as a doe-eyed damsel in
distress, pacing and loudly yelling, joining groups of patrons (particularly
when a scared girl didn’t want me to!), and behaving like a paranoid feral cat.
Regardless of where I was in the Basement, I think the
reason the Basement meant so much to me was because of all the wonderful people
I met there. From the moment I set foot on the Soap Factory deck, I felt
nothing but welcoming support from everyone present. If there was any drama, it was so well
contained that I didn’t even register its existence. Everyone came together to produce this
incredible, creepy, bizarre, and beautiful piece of performance art. Whether it was my personal decision to jump
into the experience with both feet, or the chance to experiment creatively with
feelings that once controlled me, or simply the opportunity to play with a
bunch of creepy weirdos every night, the Haunted Basement was one of the most
meaningful experiences of my life. I’m so honored to have been a part of it.
