It is that time of year again where the color of the leaves range from a rusted red to a bright yellow. Cold, crisp mornings turn into warm afternoons. The smell of pumpkin follows  every move; bellies are filled with the guilty pleasures of fair food and ready to be filled with a variety of candy. For the students and staff of Wakefield High School, it is the time of year to endure horrors and scream at the top of your lungs at the Haunted House.

The Haunted House has been a tradition at Wakefield for fifteen years. However, the show was unable to go on last year due to the theater’s popular production of Peter Pan.  The set up for Peter Pan unfortunately ran into the time for Haunted House, causing this to be left in the dark. Determined to make up for the lost plans, the International Thespian Society and the Drama Club had high hopes in setting up this year’s Haunted House.

“Running the Haunted House is technically a duty, but it’s something we all have fun doing,” senior of the International Thespian Society officer Jared Scott said. “We get to be creative and go as big and bold as we want to be. It is reassuring as an officer to see everyone come together and put on this cool thing.”

Officers of the International Thespian Society; Jasmine Warner, Allison Hancock, and Jared Scott were majors leaders in this event. With the help of members and nonmembers of the International Thespian Society and Drama Club, the students were able to set forth innovative ideas to make this Haunted House unique in comparison to the years prior. Paul Orsett, drama teacher at Wakefield, reflected prior to the event on his decision to stand back and hand the job over to the students.   

“The value of letting students take over this project is leadership, learning lessons of communication, and just coming up with ideas,”Orsett said. “They come up with a lot of fun ideas. They put a script together, and they have to memorize the script, people who are walking through, and the characters. They’re creating different scenarios for different people and working with large groups of people.”

Participating in the Haunted House was also a great opportunity for club members to get hours, however that was not the only reason why they dedicated their time to this event.

“I finished my hours for Drama Club, but I participated for the enjoyment and I thought I could be helpful,”sophomore  Drama Club member Jackson Hoomani said.

Although the Haunted House served as a great opportunity for the students to work with their peers and hear many opinions, the ability to consolidate those ideas with such little time to prepare was a challenge.

“We started tech (building sets, making props, and making costumes) a week ago, which gave us two weeks to build all of the sets,” Scott said. Before that [tech work], the officers met to discuss storylines. There is a lot of preparation, but not much time. We had about four weeks.  It was really hard trying to incorporate all of the ideas. It came to the point where we looked at them and just said this isn’t going to work.”

Allowing nonmembers to audition for characters shows how the leaders of this event were accepting to new ideas and new faces.

“The Haunted House tends to be the time that we get new people involved in the theater department,”said Orsett. “It’s a fun thing, and it’s exciting to take apart in. When you start having fun, you think “hey” this theater thing is for me. We usually hang on to those folks.”

The Haunted House started on October 27 and ended  on the 29. The showings were from 5:30-9:30, and admission was five dollars. Due to the temporary suspension of SMART Lunch, the plans for showings during this time was no longer available. However, they made times flexible for students who wished to bear witness to this horrifying event. The Haunted House showed  during all lunches on Thursday and Friday.

The Haunted House was set on increasing their attendance this year by alerting the middle school and many other schools in Wake County. To accommodate a wide variety of audiences, they created different

“We have a lot of  the young kids who come in and we do kind of a smile and wave session. There is a medium level that is kind of scary. Then there is the scariest level where we  frighten everyone as they walk through,” Orsett said

All in all, the Haunted House was the perfect opportunity for the theater department to express their ideas and work with their fellow students. They had the chance to build strong relationships with multiple people and get accustomed to the creative ways of theater life.

“I would encourage people to join theater because if you join in your freshman and sophomore year you can run for officer positions,” Scott said.“The officers are the ones who are in charge of the Haunted House, so if people are interested in this kind of thing they should get involved now, that way they can grow in the program. It doesn’t take much, it just take commitment.”