Saturday, Oct. 23 at 5 p.m. — BARNARD — BarnArts launches a new seasonal theater project this fall, Haunted Village Theater, to be held on Oct. 23 in the village of Barnard. Local actors will lead tours around Barnard, visiting five separate mostly outdoor locations, each with a small cast of actors telling a ghost story or a short play around a fire pit. This event will incorporate local lore and public spaces with our creative community, establishing a new cultural experience for all ages. Tickets are available at barnarts.org and are “you choose” sliding-scale $5-20.
Reservations are strongly encouraged as space is limited to 20 viewers for each tour. Family friendly tours begin at 5 p.m. PG haunted tours begin at 6 p.m. The last tours of the night, for PG-13 audiences, begin at 7:30 p.m. Each actor-led tour visits five sites around the village and takes approximately 90 minutes.
The first four sites are organized around separate firepits while the last story is told inside the First Universalist Church and Society of Barnard. The Barnard Town Hall will be the check-in, starting and ending locations of the tours. Local non-profit Seeds & Trees will be selling hot food and drinks as a fundraiser for their February trip to Peru. Chairs will be available at each location, but the audience should be careful to dress warmly for cool outdoor weather and walking on damp grass.
The first haunted story firepit will be in the old apple orchard behind the Barnard Town Hall, a historic location that once held the town bandstand. Actor Jake O’Neill will enact the story of “the Mad Wolf” – a haunting true story that took place in the first years of European settlement of Barnard. The tour will then walk to the center of Barnard and be engaged by the Paige Family of Vershire with their story of the haunted doll, told around a firepit near the edge of Silver Lake.
Behind the Barnard General Store on the Dorothy Thompson Memorial Common will be the last two outdoor firepit sites. Aaron Hodge and Erin Bennett will do an acted reading of Edgar Allen Poe’s famous poem “The Raven” and local youth actors, Omi Malin-Stremlau, Marlena Farinas and Grace Perreault will take you into the forbidden world of “The Monkey’s Claw” with support of actor Molly McDermott.
The final experience of the tour, “Emily’s Bridge,” reveals the scary “truth” about a haunted covered bridge in Stowe told by actors Jill Clough and Neil Cronce. “Emily’s Bridge” is a multi-media experience and takes place inside the First Universalist Church.
Actor tour guides, Dan Deneen, Kerry Rosenthal and Eric Fritz will share more stories mixed with interesting lore of the Barnard village while leading the audience safely between sites. All sites are a short walk from each other, but participants should be dressed for outdoors and damp ground. For ADA accommodations please contact BarnArts.
More info on Haunted Village Theater is available on BarnArts website, by emailing info@barnarts.org or leaving a message at 802-234-1645.
