“Hollowe’en Spooktacular” to be put on by new youth theatre program at OV Arts Centre

New this year, the Spooktacular will feature “scare actors” from the RTS Youth Theatre program. (Lauryn Mackenzie/CHLY 101.7FM)

Something is lurking in the OV Art Centre, and for the third year, Reconciliation Theatre is welcoming guests to explore the haunted depths of the Victoria Rd theatre.

On Wednesday and Thursday, October 29th and 30th, Reconciliation Theatre is putting on their Hallowe’en Spooktacular with a haunted tour of the OV Art Centre and readings from Indigenous dark fiction.

New this year, the Spooktacular will feature “scare actors” from the RTS Youth Theatre program.

Tom Rokeby, co-founder and current artistic director of the Reconciliation Theatre, told CHLY that this year’s spooktacular is a fundraiser for their new youth program that started in September.

Every second and fourth Thursday at the OV Art Centre, the theatre group hosts a by-donation drop-in youth theatre program run by volunteers who are certified public school teachers.

The program is for youth aged 12-18.

Rokeby says they wanted to start the youth program to create an environment where many different generations could all come together, share their passion for acting and grow their skills.

“We've been trying to work intergenerationally. We want to be able to come with our families,” Rokeby said. “So often that when they're in a theatre production, it means leaving your family at home for three or four months and devoting yourself to the production. So we wanted to challenge that paradigm and just see if we could create an environment where all generations can work together.”

The youth program has only had its third meeting, and already about nine youth have joined.

“So we're really excited about the option to grow this program, because one of the other motivations is that a lot of youth arts programming is located in the north end of the city, and we wanted to make it accessible to residents of the south end,” he said.

Rokeby said offering this program gives families the chance to have their kids access affordable, healthy things to do closer to home.

The program is run on a free or by-donation basis, with a sliding scale up to $10 a night.

“We have families that this is exactly what they need in this kind of an economic climate,” Rokeby said. “Affordability being a main issue for a lot of families, especially in the south end. We can go out into the community, put on events like this, and apply for grants–we'll keep the lights on, and we just would love to see the families come out and get their kids involved.”

The youth program features lessons in improv and making up skits on the fly, as well as developing skills around the control of body and voice, so that if a youth comes regularly or just drops in once in a while, they can still be included.

Car Rokeby and Flynn Maher are both 14-year-olds in the RTS Youth Theatre program. They both joined the program because of their interest in acting and theatre.

Car said he is excited to be one of the scare actors at this year’s Hallowe’en Spooktacular after volunteering a bit the year prior with his parents.

“I think it's really cool when there's a bunch of lights and sound effects in the dark down there. It's really funny to just [be upstairs where it’s] normal, and then I go down and it's completely different,” Car said. “I've never been part of the scare team, but going through it is really scary, but it's also a lot of fun, because I know the people, but I don't realize that they're them until I've been terrified by them.”

Maher also said they are very excited to be joining this year’s scare team.

“I didn't do scary acting last year, but I did do another haunted house for the Nanaimo Museum, and I remember it being a lot of fun,” Maher said. “It was kind of a smaller thing, and this is kind of a bigger deal. I'm really excited to just branch out and do true scare acting.”

While down in the “haunted” basement, both Car and Maher admitted to CHLY that they had both felt the uneasy presence of a ghost lurking in the theatre.

“So basically, I did A Christmas Carol in 2018 here, and I remember there were a lot of weird little things that would happen. There was this one door, it was really creepy, and it was on stage, and it was supposed to be the door that Marley popped his head through, and scared Scrooge in the beginning,” Maher said. “One day on stage, it was fully closed–I remember someone fully closing it, and the doorknob turned, and it opened on its own. Then the actors just kind of had to roll with it–roll with the random ghost on stage.”

“Every theatre in Nanaimo, no matter what has happened, is always haunted,” Car said. “Also, on the stage, if you go behind the drapes, and there's a little door that, if you push on it opens, and then there's storage. If you look past that, there's another door, and then if you open that, there's another door, and no one knows what that goes to.”

And for those who still don’t believe the OV Arts Centre is haunted, well, Rokeby would say otherwise.

“I know the OV theatre is haunted. I have had to be the last one out of here a couple of times, and it gets really dark, and there are all the stories of the poor, lost actress who never made her way out, who got her heart crushed on stage from a tough scene,” Rokeby said. “There are so many stories of characters that have come in and out of the stage. It's a haunted environment because there are lots of spirit in the building, and we plan to add to that spirit.”

Reconciliation Theatre’s Hallowe’en Spooktacular is on October 29 and 30th from 5:00-9:00 p.m. Tickets are available at the door: $10 for adults, $5 for children, and family passes are $20.

More information on the event and their other work can be found at reconciliationtheatre.ca

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.