Frightful Delight

October is here which triggers images of colorful leaves, bonfires, autumn, and haunted houses.

Yes, the season for spooks has arrived which means the country starts breaking out haunted house attractions by the bushel.  And in nearby Kansas City, MO lay two of the USA’s most famous horror attractions:  The Beast and Edge of Hell owned and operated by Full Moon Productions.

Now I had visited these two attractions many years ago, but that was before I became a travel writer and, also, my memories of my original visit had faded so I felt it was time to revisit them and put the power of the pen to work.

So it was that this past Saturday found me on the road with my haunted house loving friend, Eric Grant-Leanna, to revisit a pair of legends plus Full Moon’s other attraction:  Macabre Cinema.

So what makes for a truly great haunted house?

1. It should be scary (or at least generate a certain level of tension)
2. It should be long.
3. If possible, it should be non-linear and open for exploration.
4. Actors should be fully committed to their roles.

With those in mind, let us proceed.

Now each house costs $35, but you can get a combo pass for all 3 for $90 or a VIP pass for $150 which lets you bypass the line on all of them.  As we both detest waiting in lines, Eric and I went for the VIP Pass.

We first visited Macabre Cinema (1222 W 12th St) and Eric and I agreed that this one was the best of the three.

As we briefly waited for our turn, we were treated to a digital portrait that morphed into several characters which behaved ghoulishly to whet the appetites for the public.  Then my trusted companion and I ventured into the cinema.

You’re immersed into the attraction from the beginning as you enter a movie theater with a horror movie playing on the screen and you go through the screen and into the scares.

Now this house ticked all of my boxes as we wandered throughout the cinema.  It is very long as it took us over 30 minutes to venture through the theater.  It’s even a little non-linear as you have to do a little bit of searching to find your way out of each room, usually having to find a hidden exit of some kind.  We wandered through sets reminiscent of horror movies such as The Mummy and Killer Klowns from Outer Space.  Horror legends such as Michael Myers pursued as along with a psychotic clown which reminded me of The Joker’s moll, Harley Quinn who seemed to warp between rooms and floors to follow us with her creepy, high-pitched laugh.

Highlight of this house was the Bloody Mary room where you are forced to play the game.

After 4 floors of frights, we burst out into the cool night and made our way across the street to Edge of Hell.

Edge of Hell (1300 W 12th St) was definitely the weakest of the three largely due to its linear nature as Eric and I were able to complete it in about 15 minutes.  Now this house focuses more on phobias with some tight squeezes and the presence of the world’s longest, living snake.  But it also has some traditional spooks with vampires, crypts, and the like.  Two of its unique attractions was a room meant to be Heaven which serves as a respite from the scares at least until you’re given the boot.  While creative, one element of the room did push the boundaries of taste a bit and may offend people of faith.  The other unique attraction was the five story plunge down a slide to escape from the house.  Stairs are available for the fearful or those unable to slide.

From there we marched the few blocks to the legend:  The Beast (1401 W 13th St).

Now this was second to Macabre Cinema only by a hair.  I promise you that you won’t find a haunted house quite like this one.

This is the most non-linear house I have ever visited.  You begin by traveling around a swamp on shaky suspension bridges and I dreaded something coming out of the water.  There is also the feared Werewolf Forest (and, yes, it is a forest).  This is a maze so baffling that cast members sweep it periodically to help the hopelessly lost.  We got jammed behind a group of school girls who did get hopelessly lost here and in the castle maze (I wonder if they’re still wandering the halls).

Animatronic creatures pop out of walls to startle and scare and you’ll also need to find hidden exits to escape from some of the rooms.  This attraction also has its own multi-story slide to escape (stairs also available), but you use waxed paper to help speed you down.  They may want to rethink the paper as it makes you slide down like lightning and I nearly vaulted past the stop zone.

My only real critique of the three houses is that I thought the lights could be brought up just a bit as there are some considerable details put into the rooms of these houses and it would have been nice to make them out.  Sometimes it was so dark that I needed Eric’s glowing shoes to help guide me.  Also, proceed very carefully through the houses.  You will need to indemnify the houses before entering and these are old buildings where a bad step could lead to injury if you’re not careful.  But if you take it slow, you’ll have a great time.

But if you’re a fan of haunted houses, then you need to visit this legendary trio.  It’s a spooktacular good time!

Analysis of a Murder

On the night of October 6, 1998, Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten, tortured, and left to die, tied to a barbed wire fence.  His assailants were caught within a day, but the revelation that the vicious attack was, at least, partially motivated by Shepard’s orientation and his subsequent death six days later shone an ugly spotlight on the small town of Laramie, Wyoming.  In an attempt to understand the factors that led to the savage crime and to share the truth, Moises Kaufman and Members of Tectonic Theater Project traveled to Laramie to conduct interviews with the town’s citizens and those who knew him.  The end result of these interviews and news stories was The Laramie Project and it is currently running at The Barn Players.

This is certainly the most ambitious play that I’ve ever seen as Kaufman and Members of Tectonic Theater Project conducted nearly 200 interviews, spliced in news stories, and somehow managed to edit it into the most real play I’m likely to view in my lifetime.  And the reason it’s so real is that is real.  Every word said in this show was said in reality and everything that occurs happened in real life.  The show completely eschews the normal narrative style as each scene is a disparate, standalone bit.  Yet, somehow, it all has a natural flow and tells a gripping tale about the evils of prejudice.  It was both an education and a privilege to watch this masterful bit of storytelling by an ensemble of talented performers that were universally up for the game.

In order to do true justice to this production, I would have to write a 50 page review.  But let me say that this show is an actor’s dream as each and every performer has to play multiple characters.  This requires a cast of top flight, versatile thespians and this show has that in spades as there isn’t a weak link to be found.

Some of the many stellar performances to be found in this production come from Christa James who excels as Shephard’s close friend, Romaine Peterson; Gideon Madison who is particularly convincing as Jedidiah Schultz, a young theatre student who also has the biggest character arc in the show; Larissa Briley as the compassionate Officer Reggie Fluty who cared for the brutalized Shephard at great personal risk after it was discovered he was HIV positive; Christoph Cording who provides levity and wisdom as Doc O’Connor; and Matt Fowler who has the night’s most heart rending moment with his portrayal of Shepard’s father, Dennis, who will get tears flowing with his victim’s statement at the sentencing of his son’s killer.

I was quite taken with Ron Meyer’s portrayal of Father Roger Schmit.  He was gregarious.  He was bold.  He was even humorous with his preciseness of speech.  Most importantly he had a powerful sense of justice.  Schmit helped to organize the vigils for Matthew Shephard, believing it to be right.  But he was also bound and determined to see the truth of the situation be told about the situation.  He wanted justice for Matthew and believed part of the sentencing of his killers should include them telling their story to explain how they reached their particular point and he also insisted that the makers of the play “tell the story correct”.

Brent Custer has some incredible versatility and an epic example of this ability is demonstrated in his beautifully disparate renditions of Aaron McKinney, one of Shephard’s killers, and Matt Galloway, the bartender who was the last person to see Shephard before the crime.

As Galloway, Custer is friendly and observant as he proves to be a potent eyewitness for the prosecution and a bit of a philosopher.  He helps to damage the credibility of the defense’s gay panic theory (claiming that McKinney murdered Shephard in a fit of rage after an unwanted sexual advance) with his theories on territoriality as he claims Shephard’s killers approached him and not the other way around.  His Galloway is also a bit of a ham who clearly enjoys his 15 minutes of fame as a star witness and is quite amusing with his explaining the art of testifying.

With a snap of the fingers, Custer changes from the affable Galloway to the cold and sullen Aaron McKinney.  As McKinney he is as cold-blooded as a reptile and as remorseless a human as you’ll ever see as he calmly admits to his dislike of homosexuals and casually describes the horrific beating he inflicted on Shephard while callously ignoring his pleas to stop.  His only concern is whether he gets 25 to life or the death penalty.

Josh Jackson gives a tour de force performance with the many different roles he portrays in the night’s production.  Seldom have I seen an actor with such transformative abilities as he becomes different personas with slight changes in body language and vocal control.  Through the night, he’ll tug at your heart as Greg Pierotti, a theatre member who felt a kinship with Shepard, repulse you as the hate-mongering Fred Phelps, and make you laugh as the bar owner, Matt Mickelson.

Guiding a show of this difficulty requires a steady and confident director and this show assuredly had one and then some in the form of Ashton Botts.  Her staging is immaculate and struck a unique dichotomy with static movement combined with unyielding energy.  The actors don’t move much, but that’s actually crucial for this show as the energy needs to be on the words in order to draw in the viewer.  It’s also one of the most impressive pieces of coaching I’ve ever seen as the energy of her actors never wanes and each of the sixty characters they play are well-defined and different.  There’s never a point when you don’t know which character an actor is playing.

Nathan Wyman’s simple set of risers and chairs unlock the theatre of the mind as the actors adjust the chairs to suit the scenes and let the audience’s imagination do the rest.  Chuck Cline’s use of lights enhance the story so much with his minimalist application to put the focus squarely on the essential performers of each scene.  Brenna McConaughey’s costumes are as real and natural as the performances of the actors.

This is a very hard show to watch, but it is also a very necessary show to watch due to the challenging themes it presents and the difficult questions it asks.  Where are our values?  Why do we hate that which is different?  Why does society relish sensationalism?  There are no easy answers to these questions, but a statement from Jedidiah Schultz points us in the direction we should be going when he says, “How could I ever think they were different from me?”  When society makes that same realization and starts pulling together like the family it is, this world will be a marvelous place.

The Laramie Project runs at The Barn Players through May 30.  Showtimes are Thurs-Sat at 7:30pm (and for a showing on Monday, May 24) and Sundays at 2pm.  The show is only available via livestream and tickets may be purchased at https://www.showtix4u.com/event-details/52153.  Tickets cost $15.  Due to mature themes and language, the show is not suitable for children.  The Barn Players is located at 1000 E 9^th St, Ste 225 in Kansas City, MO.

Scottish Midwest: Woodstock Inn

Woodstock Inn

Today the road has brought me to Independence, MO.

For the first time ever, I have returned to a city to review a different inn.  A few years ago, I was in the KC area to review The Crucible for the Barn Players and reviewed Silver Heart Inn while I was in the area and you can read that article here.  Today I was back to review Woodstock Inn owned by Kim Morgan.

The inn holds quite a bit of history as it was originally the home of Morris Short and his family in the 1890s.  Within one hundred yards of the inn, one can find a historical marker designating a Confederate line.  So part of the Civil War was fought almost literally at the doorstep of the inn. 

The inn’s most famous resident was Ruby McKim, the daughter of Morris & Viola Short who was famed quilter who turned the home into McKim Studios which later evolved into Kimport’s Dolls.  In the 1980s, the inn was repurposed into a B & B with each room themed to a different country and changed hands several times before Kim Morgan took over ownership.

I had arranged to arrive at 1pm and was greeted at the door by the innkeeper, Debbie Gardner, who led me to the Scottish King Room.  Inside the room one finds hallmarks of bonnie Scotland including a painting of a Scottie, a pair of bagpipes hanging on the wall and a flat cap akin to the style favored in Scotland also adorns a wall with a cane.

The room is quite large and its sky blue walls and thick off-white carpeting instantly began stoking relaxation.  A gas fireplace is present on the far wall while the king bed sits in the centerish of the room.

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Normally, I would have used the additional time to visit sites of interest, but due to a combination of the off-season, renovations and COVID I found that the museums and historic homes were closed.  However, I did enjoy a lengthy walk through the historic neighborhood and spent a bit of time admiring the architecture of the headquarters of Community of Christ.

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After my walk I returned to the inn where I caught an online church service before heading out for a bit of dinner at A Little BBQ Joint. 

The sign is very truthful as it is a little BBQ joint.  And with social distancing protocols, it’s even littler.  But it serves a good meal as I enjoyed a bowl of thick Brisket Chili loaded with plenty of vegetables. 

With dinner digesting, I went back to the inn.  Woodstock Inn has a small commons area which also serves as the dining area.  A large, cozy fireplace is the centerpiece of the room and off to the side is a small area where one can find baked goods in the afternoon and a movie library.

I caught up on a couple of TV shows before calling it an early night.  Such a wonderful sleep.  The heavy blankets combined with what felt like a memory foam mattress put my lights out good and proper and I dreamily remember barely waking up once before turning over to sleep on my stomach.

Thanks to a rejuvenating sleep, I awoke energized and ready for breakfast where I enjoyed a Crème Brule French Toast with yogurt topped with fruit and granola, a lemon/cranberry (I think) muffin and a thin slice of ham.

Creme Brule French Toast, lemon/cranberry muffin, ham and yogurt with fruit and granola

With breakfast tucked away, I headed back to Omaha and reality.

Woodstock Inn is a comfortable inn suitable for a romantic night with your loved one and is just a hop, skip and jump from shopping, restaurants, Community of Christ headquarters and a bit of history and is worthy of a visit.

Until the next time. . .happy travels.

Maples Repertory Theatre Auditioning for Actors & Hiring Techs for 2020 Season

Maples Repertory Theatre is holding auditions and accepting applications for actors and technicians for the 2020 season!

Audition dates and times:

2020 UPTA; Memphis, TN February 7 – 10.

2020 Open Audition at Royal Theatre; 102 N. Rubey St.; Macon, MO February 15, 2020
Actors: Please bring headshot/resume and a comic monologue and song. (Accompanist Provided)
Technicians: Please bring resume (and portfolio if applicable)

2020 MWTA; St. Louis, MO February 21-23, 2020

2020 Auditions in Kansas City: February 24, 2020 at Quality Hill Playhouse. 1 – 4pm and 530 – 830 pm

For audition appointment email info@maplesrep.com

To submit electronically email todd@maplesrep.com

Note: If there is inclement weather, auditions may be postponed. Please double check by calling the box office or visiting our Facebook page on the day you plan to audition.

Maples Repertory Theatre 2020 Season

You Can’t Take it With You (June 17-July 12)

Greater Tuna (June 26-July 16) (The roles for this show have been cast.)

Phantom of the Country Opera (July 17-Aug 9)

Menopause:  The Musical (Sept 16-Oct 4)

Ripcord (Oct 14-25)

I Love a Piano (Nov 27-Dec 13)

 

I’ve Gotta Get Back in Thyme. . .Again

Friday, July 29:  the day the road took me to my most poignant place.

On this sunny day I began a journey nearly 14 years in the making.  For it was on this day that I headed to Bonner Springs, KS to be a guest at Back in Thyme Bed and Breakfast and to review The Elephant Man for The Barn Players of Mission, KS.

If you’re a first time visitor to this website, The Elephant Man is my favorite play and it played a rather profound moment in my life.  For the full details of that story, click here.  I had long made my peace with the events of that day which is why I was so excited to finally have an opportunity to see the show and come fullish circle.  The timing couldn’t be more appropriate as this article will be posted on the 14^th anniversary that I heard the results of that audition.

Bonner Springs is a suburb of Kansas City so it provides a unique blend of small town living with the perks of a nearby major metropolitan area for things to do.  Back in Thyme, owned and operated by Judy Vickers, is a beautiful “new-old” Queen Anne house nestled on a secluded acreage near Nettleton Avenue.

Given the size of the house I was surprised that it only boasted 3 bedrooms for rental.  On the other hand, the limited number of rooms does make it ideal for peace and quiet.  As I climbed the porch steps, I met Brantley and Ashley, fellow guests who were in the area to see a Rascal Flatts concert.  As I reached the top step, I was greeted by Judy, a very hospitable host and a fount of knowledge on fun things to do in the area.

Judy led me to the Bay Laurel Room which would serve as my base of operations.  It’s one of the most comfortable rooms in which I’ve stayed with its soft armchairs, burgundy walls, feather pillows, and a queen bed with a firm mattress.  The room also boasts a fireplace and I mildly wished it were colder so I could get a crackling blaze going.

I unwound in my room for a while before sprucing up for the show and enjoying a 6pm appetizer with Judy and a couple of her friends.  I ended up in a great conversation with Fred, a rather intelligent man who is currently writing three books.  I enjoyed a pleasant hour conversing with Fred as we nibbled on cheese, olives, crackers, and baba ganoush.

When Fred noticed traffic starting to back up on the highway, I decided to head over to the Barn Players.  Once more, Mapquest tried to put one over on me by telling me to make a right turn on a street when it should have been a left.  Shades of Richardson, TX flashed through my brain as I got my bearings and got back on the right track.  Luckily, I made it to the theatre with about 7 minutes to spare.

The Barn Players is a bit of an institution in Mission and has quite an impressive reputation.  Many of its alumni have gone on to professional acting careers, most notably Chris Cooper.  The show was almost everything that I hoped it would be.  A few flaws kept it out of the excellent region, but it was still very good and thoroughly enjoyable.  You can read my review for the show here.

I returned to Back in Thyme where I wrote my review and curled up in my bed for a good night’s rest.

After a comfy night’s sleep, I awoke ravenous.  I headed downstairs and enjoyed chit-chat with Brantley and Ashley as we dined on Judy’s wonderful scrambled eggs cooked in thyme butter, crispy bacon, French toast, and fried apples.

Having restored the inner man, I went upstairs to do a little work on the computer before deciding to take advantage of the pleasant day and walk along some trails I found behind the house.  Normally I like communing with nature, but I got a faceful of nature in the most literal sense as I stumbled through myriad spider webs as I wandered through the woods.  I escaped from the woods yanking webbing off of my face and hair.

Judy had suggested several areas of interest, some of which I will save for a future visit to the K.C. area, but I did take time to visit Bonner Springs’ famed Moon Marble Company.

As the name implies, the store is famed for its marbles and even gives demonstrations into a making of marbles, but the store is so much more than that.  The store also specializes in board games, puzzles, and classic toys.  I was amazed at all of the hard to find toys and games located in the shop.  Duncan Yo-yos, rare board games, Jacob’s ladders, Fisher-Price toys that I remembered from my childhood.  If you like vintage toys and games, take some time to visit Moon Marble Company if you find yourselves in Bonner Springs.

After I drove around the downtown area, I returned to the inn where I killed a few hours watching a mystery series before cleaning up for church and dinner.

I attended services at Good Shepherd Catholic Community in Shawnee, KS where I enjoyed a wonderful service preached by Fr. Oswaldo.  When services were done, I headed over to Hereford House for dinner.

Hereford House is a Kansas City institution and this was one of the tastiest meals I have ever eaten.  I indulged in a small salad with creamy Italian dressing before supping on the main course of a 12 oz ribeye blackened with garlic butter and a side of Cheddar Ranch potatoes and a bit of bread.  Most of my dinner came back with me where it currently rests in the inn’s guest fridge for a future meal.

I spent the remainder of the evening working on this article before turning in for the night.

I awoke to a rather gloomy day and am expecting some rain on the drive home.  I spent a bit of time editing this article and then went downstairs for another rousing breakfast.

At the table, I met Courtney and Ashley from Olathe, KS who had just come in from having coffee on the porch and we chatted while Judy served us a sumptuous meal of sausage, green chile egg casserole with salsa (now one of my favorite dishes), zucchini muffins, and cantaloupe.  The pleasant meal and talk was over much too quickly and I began to pack up for the drive home.

So if you find yourself in the Kansas City area, spend an evening at Back in Thyme in Bonner Springs.  You’ll find some good (and healthy) home cooking on a peaceful estate with plenty to do nearby.