The scary season is over, but the Halloween spirit is still haunting CSArts. Halloween was celebrated with the school’s first ever cross-conservatory haunted house: Tick or Treat! Students from the Acting, Creative Writing, Production and Design, and School of Dance conservatories collaborated to create an immersive experience.
The shows themselves were completely written, directed, musicalized, designed, built, and performed by CSArts students,”
said Mr. Blaylock, the Creative Writing director.
Each student brought their unique insight and talents to the event. Students were assigned different roles for the separate shows.
The writers wrote the script… The actors memorize their lines, and the production designers come up with a floor plan and design. There were people who did lights and people who did sound,”
said Sophia (CW’26).
Each group [of students] contained a writing team, production and design team, and a performance team. Each group was given a dance studio to create an immersive theatrical experience inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s The Devil in the Belfry,”
said Mr. Blaylock.
Jonas, a freshman, worked as one of five script writers and as a sound director for the shows.
It was a really fun experience… it was amazing to see what the actors and production and design crew put together based on our ideas,”
he said.
The design and construction stretched over the span of three days.
The students began creating the shows on Friday evening with the performance on Sunday night,”
said Mr. Blaylock. On the weekend of the event, students planned, wrote, and rehearsed the shows. Though the students had limited time to prepare the event, they succeeded in creating four chilling Halloween stories.
On October 23rd, CSArts presented four haunting shows in the dance studios.
I was really impressed with how much work they finished in two days, the sets especially. It was really entertaining! I was impressed by the cool use of music. One of them had someone actually playing the piano, another had a laugh track whenever they made a sit-com joke. One of them had a dance portion. I thought that was just awesome!”
said Jaya, a student who attended the haunted house.
Tick or Treat was an all around eerie production that showcased the talent and creativity of CSArts students.
The shows were spooky and disturbing while maintaining a great balance of comedy and cleverness. The students really stepped up to the difficult task of creating compelling stories in 48 hours. And the audience seemed to really enjoy what they came up with!”
said Mr. Blaylock. Those who worked on the project agree.
It was really fun! I hope they do it again next year,”
said Sophia. Hopefully, CSArts will host another scarily successful haunted house next Halloween.
The Drowsy Chaperone