Haunted House

Ally and Palmetto Players had their annual Haunted House on Halloween night, and this year I actually got to participate. The theme was "A Very Grimm Halloween," using the original stories from the brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson. You know, the ones where the queen doesn't get insider info on Rumpelstiltskin, and he ends up killing her and taking the baby; or where Prince Eric is a fickle, weak-willed cad who falls for Ursula and dumps Ariel, who promptly died and turns into sea foam; or in my room, where the wicked, myopic witch really does eat the children who were stupid enough to trust a stranger who lived in a confectionary. That was fun.
Anyway, ignoring the scrambling confusion to find 2 people for my room who qualified as members of at least one of the clubs, the day itself was an exercise in frantic-ness. The Haunted House is set up in the Alumnae House, across the street from the school. We needed to get cardboard to make an oven big enough to shove 2 people into. Also, the room to which we were assigned was a bathroom. Small in the first place, but downright claustrophobic when you shove 10 people PLUS the three of us in there. (Most groups weren't that big, but there were some that made doing much more than standing in one spot difficult). We finally scrounged the cardboard day-of, then assembled the oven over the tub.
My scissors got commandeered to cut yarn, then something else, and now 2 weeks later I have no idea where or with whom they are.
Our room, as I said, was small, and the frequency of the groups dictated that we had to know cues from the room before us to set up our own act. The room also had in it a heater we could not turn off, and a window we could not open. Once we got the cues from the Ariel room right before us down fairly well, we spent most of our time in the large bedroom after us, hanging our the window and gulping cold air.
One group in particular left a vivid impression. If, once I had shoved 'Hansel' and 'Gretel' into the oven, the crowd didn't move along quickly enough, I would 'invite' them in to be cooked as well. That usually moved them along, with the direction of one of Monkey's Big Sisses who led the groups; however...
One guy took me up on it. I was getting tipsy from his breath.
He didn't climb all the way into the oven, though (thankfully). I think he would have brought it down on us. As it was we had to tape it back together after every go-through.

It was an exhausting, frantic, tiresome, exhilarating, and I can't wait 'til next year!

~Brill