Theatre Lunatico Performs Double Header of Scary Stories in October

The Theatre Lunatico ensemble returns to the stage in October with a double header of two classic scary stories. Gendell Hing-Hernández adapts and directs Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Tara Blau Smollen directs Joseph Robinette’s adaptation of William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily. Each director takes the reins for half the evening with the same Lunatico ensemble performing both plays.  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and A Rose for Emily – Tales from Behind the Basement Door opens on Saturday, October 21 (press opening Saturday, October 21), and runs through Sunday, November 5 at La Val’s Subterranean Theater in Berkeley, with a special late night performance on Halloween. Advance tickets (Pay What You Will) are available at www.theatrelunatico.org or can be purchased at the door subject to availability. 

Theatre Lunatico follows up its chilling Fall 2019 production of Dracula, written by Steven Dietz and directed by Tina Taylor, with a new installment of Tales from the Behind the Basement Door for the 2023 Halloween season. This year guest directors Gendell Hing-Hernández and Tara Blau Smollen unleash two classic scary stories in a double header that will thrill. Descend down the steps into the Subterranean Theater below La Val’s Pizzeria and discover the horrors that lurk within us all, whether a headless horseman or a homemade murderess. 

“Our deepest, darkest fears are in each of us. This evening of theatre will awaken those inner demons that lurk below the surface,” giddily muses adaptor and director of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Gendell Hing-Hernández. Tara Blau Smollen director of the gothic A Rose for Emily reveals that, “the things that unnerve me the most are the hidden and the psychological. Evil walks amongst us in everyday things and that’s what’s really scary.”

Our small basement black box theater creates an immersive and raw theatrical experience with ensemble performances that utilize movement, sound, and electric storytelling to evoke these scary stories. Come experience Lunatico if you dare!

The  ensemble for Theatre Lunatico's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow & A Rose for Emily – Tales from Behind the Basement Door includes Jennifer Greene, Keith Jefferds, Thomas Peterson, Lauri Smith, and Umut Yalcinkaya. Design and production team includes Rob Bradshaw (lighting), Gendell Hing-Hernández (fight choreography), Morgan Maxwell (costume design), Adriana Schurman (stage manager), Gendell Hing-Hernández & Tara Blau Smollen (directors), and Michael Barr & Shawn Oda (producers)

Theatre Lunatico is a fully vaccinated and boosted company. All audience members are requested to be fully vaccinated and masking is optional inside the theater. Oct 22nd will be a covid-cautious performance, audience masking required. Performers will be unmasked during the performance. We reserve the right to change our policy in order to comply with federal, state and local requirements.

Theatre Lunatico is a Berkeley-based, ensemble physical theatre company devoted to  narratives that place women center stage through the unique interpretive lens of our storytelling and commitment to gender parity casting. More information is available at  www.TheatreLunatico.org. 

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