Golden Valley’s haunted theater dares you to escape.
If you’re a fan of killer clowns, werewolves, demented monsters and all things scary, the Golden Valley High School theater is the place for you this Halloween season. The Golden Valley theatre program is hosting “Escape the Theater: A Haunting Escape Challenge.”
Over 50 students in the GV theater program have collaborated to put on a haunted experience, which kicked off on Thursday night and will be held Oct. 24–25 and again Oct. 29–30 from 6 to 9 p.m. Admission is $5 at the door.
“Our advanced theater students are the ones who came up with this whole idea,” said Kaely Cullen, who works as a Golden Valley CTE Arts Media and Entertainment teacher. “They were the ones who said we should make it so you have to find X, Y and Z and you have to go through this maze, getting clues from these characters. So we said sure, let’s take your ideas and roll with it.”
The students came up with the concept, wrote the script and built the set. “We've got secret doors, we've got a maze, we've used every single monster we ever created in our shows going back to 2019,” said Amber Kirby, Golden Valley’s CTE Arts, Media and Entertainment Program Director. “We’ve got alumni coming back to see characters they played so it's just kind of magical.”
The students are having a blast. “We had a haunted hallway two years ago, but we didn’t do one last year so we wanted to make up for it,” said Golden Valley student Luke McKinnon, who plays the killer clown. How scary is the haunted theater? “I’ve already made someone cry,” McKinnon said.
Both Cullen and Kirby said the event is geared toward teenagers. They have put in place safety measures if younger children go through the darkened theater and get overwhelmed with fear. They have a “code white” which will tell the students to turn the lights on and take off their masks. “These kids did not hold back,” Cullen said. “They have some really freaky masks and makeup, and they've been doing some twisting warm-ups to make sure that they are moving their bodies in these scary positions. They've been practicing their jump scares. They got me – I cried.”
Golden Valley student Elexis Alaniz is using her Halloween costume for the production. Alaniz’s mask was homemade and mimics the “Silent Hill Nurse.” “Ms. Kirby saw my mask and said I should be a monster,” Alaniz said. “I’m enjoying it. It’s fun.”
Those who dare enter the haunted theater are guided by ushers. Soon they will find out that Dionysus, the Greek god of theater, is upset because the theater program did not honor him with the sacrifice this year. “When your group walks through, you face Dionysus’ wrath, and the only way out is that you solve the puzzle,” Cullen said.
“So it's like a scavenger hunt, almost. You have to enter all of these different rooms and hallways to get the things you need to get through,” Cullen added. “You will consistently be moving, but you have to keep an eye out for those monsters.” Kirby says the students are using everything they’ve learned to put on this experience. “All the little tricks and different things are straight from one of the students' pitches, or from one of our productions in the past,” Kirby said.
Shawn Jansen is the MUHSD Program Manager Digital Media. He can be reached at Sjansen@muhsd.org.