CAST (in alphabetical order)
ILENE DYLLER (Adler) burst upon the scene as Madame DuVive in Séance at Midnight, reprising that role the following year in The Medium and the Message. She also was the narrator for The Curse of Anubis.
PAT McMAHON (Spacecraft puppeteer, Alien arm) has specialized in monsters, having played the Dementor in last year’s production of Hogwarts for Sale! He continues to be an indefatigable member of our group’s setup crew.
SAL LIBRETTO (Captain) has appeared in many of our previous productions, beginning in 1991 when he was a Mayan in The Lost Temple of the Maya. In 1992, he was the voice of the Genie in Aladdin’s Dream. In 1994 he played Merlin, the genial wizard of King Arthur’s court. The following year he starred as Professor Mortimer Jenkins, an anthropologist who discovers a strange crate on his doorstep. He played Jenkins again in 1997, when he found a use for the services of famed medium Madame DuVive in The Medium and the Message. The following year he was Charles Birch, a respected Egyptologist, in The Curse of Anubis. Then, in a change of pace, he played the loud-mouthed barker in 1999’s Side-Show Spectacular. In Hogwarts for Sale! (2000) he was the indulgent father, Elliot Zimmer.
JORDU SCHELL (Alien design and construction, puppeteer) created one of our first major effects, the Talking Head, in 1985, and made memorable masks for Aladdin’s Dream, The Curse of Anubis, and Side-Show Spectacular. For this production, Jordu designed, constructed, and operated the Alien. A native of Mt. Airy, he regularly returns from California–where he designs creatures for the movies and teaches sculpting–to assist with Halloween shows and enjoy the changing of the seasons.
BECCA STALLINGS (Narrator) For 3001: The Shadow Planet, in true show-business tradition, Becca stepped into the role of narrator at the last minute to replace an ailing cast member. She joined our crew in 1998 as a prop-painting assistant and attendance taker. In 1999, for Side-Show Spectacular, she served as head plastering assistant, off-set Rat Boy wrangler, and attendance taker. She helped write the script for this production as well as last year’s Hogwarts for Sale!
TIM VERDUIN (Perkins), who is new to the group, plays the jittery pilot of the ill-fated spaceship.
PRODUCTION CREW
DANIEL EFRAN (assistant producer, associate director, scriptwriter) has been involved in all facets of the Halloween productions since 1974, most prominently directing and acting as well as designing and constructing special effects. He starred as the hero in The Lost Temple of the Maya, made a memorable impression as the poignant yet violent Rat Boy in Side-Show Spectacular, and has co-directed and co-written most of the shows since 1988, doing much of the work long-distance, commuting and communicating from Pittsburgh. He has also written original music for several of the shows and has videotaped a number of productions. Sometimes described as having a Cecil B. deMille complex, he was saying things like “All we need is a laser” (eventually borrowed from a physics lab for Space Pod) long before lasers were readily available for a few dollars at Staples. Daniel provided the original idea for this year’s production, based on a story by Jeremy Halpern.
ELSA EFRAN (associate producer) is primarily responsible for candy, catering, costumes, critiquing, crowd control, data, editing, errand running, graphics, painting, papier-mâché, publicity, research, supplies, and last-minute odds and ends. She is still hoping that someday there will be a Nobel Prize for gofers.
JAY EFRAN (producer, director, scriptwriter) has been involved in stagecraft and magic since his youth. Little did he know that turning brown wrapping paper into “rocks” in order to create a witch’s cave in a hallway in Rochester, New York, in 1968 would lead to masterminding more than 30 years of Halloween productions. He is legendary for resurrecting a number of arcane ways of making people and objects appear, disappear, emit smoke, and burst into flames–often simultaneously.
JOHN SIEMIAROWSKI (associate producer, head carpenter, head electrician) has been an indispensable part of our productions ever since he assisted with set design, construction, lighting, and special effects for Séance at Midnight in 1996. As Master of Electrical Wizardry, he has rarely heard a wild idea of Jay’s that he hasn’t been able to bring to life. His daughter, Leah, was a child ghost in Séance at Midnight and a damsel in distress in The Curse of Anubis. His son, Jake, made a cameo appearance as Harry Potter in Hogwarts for Sale!
ADDITIONAL THANKS TO:
TIM ACKERSON (Setup/teardown)
WILL BOEHM (Set design and construction)
PAM GENGA (Set construction)
RICH GENGA (Set construction)
ALICE KAHLE (Set construction)
SUZANNE McMURPHY (Setup/teardown)
SANJAY NATH (Setup/teardown)
SAM SNEAD (Set design and construction