Local independent troupe opens Halloween play

The Bloomington Playwrights Project will serve up its answer to the age-old Halloween question of "Trick or Treat?" with its latest Dark Alley Late Night Series production, "PlayHouse of Horror." The play revolves around different levels of fright and different perspectives on the holiday.\n"We haven't pulled any punches," said producer Dana Dyer Pierson. "These three shows have been designed specifically to frighten the bejesus out of the audience."\nThe show, which follows the series' more adult-oriented theme and the BPP's mission of promoting all-new plays and playwrights, comprises the world premiere of three short plays, all of which are intended to arouse different emotional responses but at the same time unsettle the audience with feelings of fear or disturbance.\n"All three shows really have a lot of levels," Danielle Bruce, director of the second play of the evening, "Peter Has a Problem," said. "It makes for a very diverse Halloween."\nThe production will run at 10:30 p.m. today through Oct. 25, Oct. 30 and 31, and Nov. 1. Each show will kick off with Bob Risher's "Call Waiting" followed by "Peter Has a Problem" by local playwright thomas kristopher, both of which are short plays lasting only around 10 minutes. The main play of the night will be "The Session," starring Pierson and written by Chicago-based horror novelist and screenplay writer Jay Bonansinga.\n"Call Waiting" is a short play full of "dark, sick humor," said Risher, about a man who is searching for his lost daughter on Halloween and receives a suspicious telephone call from his dead best friend.\nThis is Emmy award-winning screenwriter Risher's first stab at a scary story, and he feels that it is a "low-key and funny" story that "kind of builds its way up."\n"I think it kind of lulls the audience into thinking that maybe this won't be such a frightening evening after all," said Risher, who also stars in the show.\nBruce describes "Peter Has a Problem" as being "lusty, very sexually-charged, potentially dangerous," and said that it is also "not randomly comedic, but it's precisely comedic."\nThe story follows lonely Internet chat room surfer Ivan, who invites a total stranger named Peter to his house on Halloween looking for more than just friendly companionship.\n"This play is interesting because it delves into how human beings relate to each other, what you expect from someone, and what they expect you to be," junior theater major Troy Jones, who plays the part of Peter, said.\nBut the play of this production that Pierson is particularly looking forward to is "The Session."\n"This is the best combination of script, director and co-star that I've ever had, and that's being very sincere," she said, noting that she has been active in theater for over 30 years and been involved in 200 plays. "I'm very excited about this show."\n"The Session" is about the Halloween-night discourse between criminal psychologist Dr. Lilly Havens (played by Pierson) and her newest patient Alex (played by senior Italian major Bobby Hackett), who comes to her with his own internal demons and a "deadly agenda," Hackett said. \nThe play is also full of very graphic violence and language meant only for adults, but both Pierson and director and IU graduate Jeremy Wilson feel that these are justified in the plot.\n"I think that the buckets of blood and the violence are supported by the emotions and feelings of the characters," Wilson said.\nDespite the fact that "The Session" has only two characters in the same setting for the entire hour and a half of the show, Wilson and Pierson both said they felt the real power of the play involves the fast-paced interaction of the two actors and the constant twists of the plot.\n"I think I want the audience to feel this play, not just view it," said Pierson. "I want them to go home so breathless and energized that they have no hope of going to sleep."\nFor Bonansinga, who has written nine horror novels and 15 screenplays but had never attempted a play before "The Session," this show and the BPP are acting as a way to break into a new avenue of expression. He said he "wrote it almost like a movie on the stage," and because of his background as a screenwriter, audience members should expect things they would normally not see in live theater.\n"It's a story that breaks the rules of prudent, gentile theater," he said. "It's sort of a cross between 'The Music Man' and 'Dawn of the Dead.'"\nBut, said Hackett, there is at least one thing "The Session" has that will not be found on the big screen.\n"In movies, you generally don't get blood on you," he said.\nExactly what kinds of surprises other than Wilson's promised "buckets o' blood" are in store in all three plays of "PlayHouse of Horror" remains a well-guarded secret as to protect the intended effect on the audience.\n"From the audience, I just want kind of a feeling of 'Damn, did that just happen?'" Hackett said.\n-- Contact staff writer Sean Abbott seaabbot@indiana.edu.