Halloween was even more intriguing and mystical this year thanks to Theatre on the Hill’s charming production of “The Spirit of Hallow’s Eve”. Written and directed by Douglas Hawksworth, the Bolingbrook theatre company’s presentation was hypnotic, featuring dazzling costumes, colorful sets and attention-grabbing characters.
Theater on the Hill President, Craig Engel, had earlier seen Hawksworth’s play at Joliet’s Bicentennial Park and, very impressed, instantly knew it was a production he wanted to stage in his own theatre. Said Engel on working with Hawksworth, “When I met Douglas last year, I immediately gained a sense that he and I had the same ideas about what theater could be. We both saw theater as a powerful way to create community and art, all while having a great time doing it.”
On bringing the multi-faceted play to Theatre on the Hill and working with Engel, Hawksworth explained, “This is a fantastic opportunity to showcase our work. We've always wanted to take our show to different places and Theater-on-the-Hill is perfect. The stage itself is an amazing place to see a play, and Theater-on-the-Hill is well known for doing terrific shows. I enjoyed working with Craig last spring and having him as producer makes it a lot easier for me to concentrate on directing the show.”
Well narrated throughout, the players act out the origins of Halloween from different parts of the world, including, in one, the misconceptions of Sam Hain. As the story continues, stories of vampires, a witch and an Egyptian king turned mummy are told with humor, but also with a certain beauty to them.
The large cast did an outstanding job and included fun performances from Mike Brown, Bobby Alexander, Ryan Devine, Klee Galligan, Raffi Perez, Jenna Pozzi, Nick Lucero, and Shirley Valevicius; Douglas Hawksworth, Christina Boles, Brie Petrovich, and Derrick Armstrong of Joliet; Shorewood‘s Daniel Carroll; Erika and Elsa Teo, and Cathleen Nettles of Romeoville; Itasca’s Allyssa Emelio and Gus Gustafson; Kevin, Sam and Kiera Bauc of Braidwood; Mercedes Vanderhoof, Gail St. Aubin of Naperville; Plainfield’s Jillian Stassus, Alexis Reiter, and Autumn Geist-Lombardo of Lisle.
Theatre on the Hill is located at 375 W. Briarcliff Road in Bolingbrook. For more information on past and upcoming shows visit www.tothbolingbrook.com. Theatre on the Hill’s next production is “The Laramie Project”, which begins on November 6th and will run for three weeks.
