Published: 19/09/2019
The Court Theatre’s resident monsters are creeping out from their hiding places with the arrival of silly and spooky school holiday show, Escape from Haunted House!
In this innovative play for children, Canterbury’s littlest audience members will be asked to help Veronica the Vampire and Frank the friendly Frankenstein’s monster make their way out of Sally the Mad Scientist’s spooky lair.
“This play is what happens if you mix the horror genre with something for kids,” says director Dan Bain (The Princess and the Frog (and the Robber!)). “Which seems like an oxymoron, but just look at Goosebumps, Hotel Transylvania or Scooby Doo - these all use the tropes and motors of this genre, but play it for kids with tongue in cheek silliness, which is what we will be doing.”
Escape from Haunted House is packed full of monsters and ghosts, but Bain promises that they’re all very silly characters, who are sure to provide lots of laughter to Canterbury’s little ones.
“I remember when I was a kid and my main memory of the theatre isn't actually the content of the shows, but of laughing. I think if you can make a kid laugh, it's an easy way to make them enjoy it. Kids are too honest an audience to sit through something that's boring them.”
The show is not only directed by a Court Jester (Bain is the troupe’s Artistic Director) but is written and performed by fellow Jesters, including writers Brendon Bennetts and Kathleen Burns, with Millie Hanford, Robbie Hunt and Hillary Moulder playing the show’s friendly monsters. They’ll be asking the audience to help them as the show invites kids to interact with the characters with an innovative new theatrical twist...
“Escape from Haunted House uses a lot of audience interactive mechanics that I haven’t seen before,” explains Bain. “The audience effectively control one of the characters by playing ‘hot and cold’ with them by singing a song. There is nothing else on in Christchurch like this show. I'm sure there will be other theatre plays that are targeted at children these holidays, but none with a vampire and a Frankenstein's monster escaping from a mad scientist's lair!”
“If Christmas is allowed to start two months early, then Halloween is allowed to start in the early October school holidays! Escape from Haunted House is going to be a fun, silly spooky time.”