Harlequin Productions Returns to Cayuga with Halloween-Themed Performances

Cayuga Community College’s award-winning student theatre troupe returns to the stage this fall with a set of ghoulish comedies promising scares and laughs for the Halloween season.

Zombies and other Halloween creatures will haunt the stage during Harlequin Productions’ “Undead & Unscripted,” a collection of four one-act plays featuring Cayuga students. The shows mix comedy and horror by placing familiar Halloween monsters among other characters in melodramatic scenarios.

Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. from October 23-25 and October 30-November 1 at the Irene A. Bisgrove Theatre on the College’s Auburn Campus.

Harlequin Productions Director Bob Frame said the plays allow the cast to enjoy the respective plots and characters while still developing their performing talents.

“It’s been a while since we’ve featured a Halloween-themed show, and we thought it would be fun to take some of the stock Halloween creatures — zombies, for example — and drop them into a comedy instead of a horror show,” he said. “The shows demand students learn multiple roles, so it’s been a good opportunity for them to tackle different challenges, characters and styles.”

Three plays in “Undead & Unscripted” — “Shakespeare Lives,” “Late Arrival,” and “Night of the Living Relative” — have Halloween-related plots and characters.

“Shakespeare Lives” tells the story of a man who brings Shakespeare back to life to write a sonnet for his love, while “Late Arrival” details a man arriving at a hotel after a lengthy flight only to encounter an incompetent desk clerk with unique talents. “Night of the Living Relative” showcases a brother and sister living together before one of them turns into a zombie.

A fourth play, “Playwright Writes a Play,” is the lone non-Halloween show and portrays a playwright struggling with writer’s block while picturing a cast and crew in their mind.

Student cast members are Hope Campbell, Tessa Higgins, Aiden Hodson, Kronous Panek, Dracen Walter and Rosa Wellington. Student crew members are Tamia Karugu and Jacob Soltero.

For more details on Harlequin Productions at Cayuga, visit https://www.cayuga-cc.edu/students/student-life/harlequin/.