THEATRICAL

Who: Writer/Director

What: 10-minute Comedic Horror Play

Where: 2023 Midsummer Scream Horror Convention - Long Beach, CA

When: July 29, 2023

Why: I was contacted by Midsummer Scream organizers with the request to write and direct a 10-minute play for the Midsummer Scream Horror Convention late-night event. This year’s theme was “Slumber Party”, so I was given the prompt to create a Slumber Party Seance, realizing it should be no longer than 10 minutes, and able to repeat for up to 12 performances that evening, with audiences up to 50 per show. I collaborated with David Markland and Jeff DePaoli as Producers, and Jeff Schiefelbein as Set Designer and Tech Designer, who brought a number of fun jump scare moments to the show (picture frames falling off wall, furniture floating, etc). I decided to center the play around three pre-teen girls in the 1990s having a slumber party, when they decide to play the board game Dream Phone and use a Ouija board when they can’t find the normal game board, inadvertently inviting an evil spirit to use the game phone to harass and haunt them. It helped that I had a large storage bin of 90’s props from my previous immersive show, The Sleepover. Even with a short rehearsal process, it turned out to be a fantastic show, with the help of actors Tricia Fukuhara, Nicole Kasprzyk, and Karlie Blair doing a wonderful job of portraying the awkward pre-teen girls. We filled the capacity of every show and had a stand-by line waiting outside.