The trees are starting to change their color and the temperature is beginning to cool in Solano County, which means summer is out and fall is in.
It also means that spooky season has arrived, and Bay Area Stage didn’t miss the memo.
That time leading up to Halloween night where haunted houses once again welcome visitors and horror films return to the big screen is loved by some and feared by others, but Bay Area Stage’s upcoming production of “Wait Until Dark” is for everyone, says Co-Founder Stacey Loew.
“Wait Until Dark,” was popularized through the 1967 film of the same name starring Audrey Hepburn as Susy Hendrix, a young woman who was recently blinded in a car crash. When she comes into possession of stolen goods without her knowledge, criminals break into her home in an attempt to get them back.
Just a year before the blockbuster film came out, the play “Wait Until Dark” was first performed on Broadway. Now, Bay Area Stage is putting on a slightly different rendition, which takes place in the 1940s.
The cast for the show is relatively small, just six actors throughout: Sydnee Marie Ortiz as Susan (Susy) Hendrix, Bryan Pro as Mike, Craig Rekdahl as Roat, Zack Bender as Carlino, Demian Barrett as Sam Hendrix and Ellie DeClaire as Gloria.
Despite the film’s success and his personal love for the movie, Co-Founder and Director Jeff Lowe says that Ortiz takes the role of Susy in a new and exciting direction. “She was totally not the Audrey Hepburn type, but at the same time she has that energy I was looking for for that character,” he said.
“Wait Until Dark,” isn’t a story about a woman being unjustly terrorized — at least that’s not all it’s about. When night falls, Susy learns to use her blindness as an advantage in a dimly lit game of cat and mouse.
Complex stage directions and the fact that the main character is blind makes choreographing the movement of the play challenging, says Lowe. However, the cast continues to work hard at perfecting it.
“They’re all great,” said Lowe. “They all came in prepared to work hard and have done so.”
Loew says she enjoys putting on spooky Halloween-themed shows, remembering a particularly memorable production of “The Haunting of Hill House” a couple of years ago.
During the show, they lost power to the theater. “What better time to have a power outage than during a scary show?” she says with a laugh. The audience shined their phone flashlights onto the stage while Loew worked backstage to make sound effects. The show must go on.
Although “Wait Until Dark” has thriller elements, Lowe says it’s nothing to be afraid of.
“It’s suspenseful, it’s creepy, it’s got everything you would want in a Halloween horror movie,” he says. There is some foul language, although minimal, and some violence particularly at the end of the play, but it is open to all ages.
So, while “Wait Until Dark” is an opportunity to get into the Halloween spirit, says Lowe, don’t “Wait Until Dark” to get tickets. Learn more at bayareastage.org
If you go …
- WHAT: “Wait Until Dark”
- WHEN: Oct. 17-Nov. 2, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m.
- WHERE: Bay Area Stage Theater, 515 Broadway H, Vallejo.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.timesheraldonline.com ’
