The Cape Breton Stage Company is a local theatre company that was formed in 2007 with the purpose of producing local, original theatre works in downtown Sydney. The company has produced numerous productions over the past three years, including this summer’s Play This Summer Theatre Festival and The Cape Breton Stage Company Hits the Streets which is an outdoor theatre festival that is part of Sydney’s Action Week Celebrations.
This fall/winter season, the company has a great line-up of local, original performances. The first is a Halloween production which will take place at St. Patrick’s Church Museum in the North End of Sydney. The production is called Tales from the Bottom of the Well and includes three original plays by Walter Carey, James FW Thompson and Wayne McKay. The plays are stories told by a ghoul who is a resident spook of St. Patrick’s Church Museum.
Thompson says the idea came about from a discussion that he and Carey were having about horror movies. From this discussion, they thought it would be a great idea to have Halloween plays. The purpose of course is to scare. “We discussed it and wanted to get another writer involved and have a trilogy of horror plays,” says Thompson. Carey wrote The Night Guard which is a dark, gothic fairy tale. Thompson penned Below, a psychological character study. “It never really says what happens, it’s left to the imagination. The characters talk about things that aren’t seen and they don’t really know what’s happening at all. It deals with the unknown – plays on people’s beliefs about human nature and religion,” reveals Thompson. The final piece is Confession, written by McKay. It is a one man show which takes the audience into the mind of a serial killer, loosely based on the British sociopath Fred West.
Thompson says that St. Pat’s is the perfect place for horror, “St. Pat’s is the perfect spooky place. I don’t like being there by myself and I’ve had to be a few times.” On Halloween night, there will be a special edition of the show which will include some stories about the ghosts which haunt St. Pat’s. According to Thompson, “The audience should expect to be scared by the plays, at least by the ideas that are put in their heads. You can create the things you don’t see in your head and those things are most frightening.”
So, if you want to have a good scare for Halloween, check out the Cape Breton Stage Company’s Tales from the Bottom of the Well. The play runs October 29, 30 and 31 at 8 pm. Admission is $10. And you may receive both a trick and a treat.
