SCT will present a Susan Hill ghost story The Woman in Black October 18-20 and 24-27 at the Historic Fox Theatre in downtown Springfield.
It’s been wildly popular in London where it’s been the second longest running play on London’s West End. It was propelled further into mainstream thanks to the film produced in 2012 starring Daniel Radcliff. The play is adapted by Stephen Malatratt, based on the novel by Susan Hill and directed by Gretchen Teague.
Nathan Shelton is a guest star in The Woman In Black along with Heath Hillhouse. Shelton, a multifaceted artist who lives in Chicago, grew up in southwest Missouri and attended Missouri State University. He appears in the production courtesy of Actors’ Equity Assocation, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the U.S., on a special appearance contract.
Shelton grew up in theatre and started working professionally at the age of 10. Besides acting, he is an award-winning writer, director and special effects makeup designer. He's the founder/executive producer of Arcane Productions.
The two-man play is set in an empty abandoned theatre where a lawyer engages a skeptical young actor to help him tell his terrifying story. The audience is taken into an eerie world of marshes, whispering sounds and lurking shadows. The Woman in Black, Shelton said, is a play within a play.
"The story of The Woman in Black is that a man who is now middle age and experienced a very, very disturbing trauma when he was younger, has now written down his story, and he is trying to move past it, trying to exorcise his personal demons, right? And deal with the trauma and the past that he has that still haunts him,” said Shelton. “So he hires an actor, and this takes place around the turn of the century, 1919, somewhere around there, 1910, and he hires an actor to help him to relay his story.”
Shelton said the audience gets to re-live the story as it unfolds “in this terrifying event that happens to him when he’s younger.” He calls it “a really unique experience.”
Shelton and Hillhouse met in college 25 years ago and wanted to do another play together, and he said they’re both horror fanatics. That’s where SCT came in. Shelton said the theatre company was really interested in matching them up for a play along with the director Gretchen Teague.
“With me being in Chicago, it doesn’t require as much in-person rehearsal time.” In fact, the first three weeks of rehearsal were over Zoom. Shelton came to Springfield for two weeks where they “put the show on its feet.” He returned to Chicago for a week, they went back to some online rehearsals, and he came back to Springfield for the show. That way of putting a show together, although unique, worked well because Shelton, Hillhouse and Teague all know each other and have worked together before.
Shelton calls SCT his theatre home. He grew up performing at Springfield Little theatre where he developed a passion for acting. When he was in middle school and high school, he began performing with SCT when it was located at the Vandivort Center Theatre. Shelton hasn’t yet performed with SCT since they’ve been at the Historic Fox Theatre.
"I was really excited to get back here and not only perform with a company that I love and I’ve been with since the beginning – they always do edgy theatre that’s allowed me to grow as a director and a producer and an actor, you know, I always love coming back to perform with them, and it was an opportunity to do that,” he said.
He expects audiences to be pulled into the story. “The staging of it, the theatricality of it, the sound, the lighting, it is very immersive. It can really draw in, and it’s a deeply emotional piece, too, he said. The show isn’t all about scares, according to Shelton. It also draws upon the very real emotions created by grief and trauma and how trauma perpetuates trauma.
The sound designer is Christian Bernard. John Johnson, technical director for SCT is the set designer and is in charge of lighting for the show, and Bryan Arata has composed music for this production.
Show times are 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday & 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on Sunday at the Historic Fox Theatre.
Tickets can be purchased online at SGFTheatre.org or springfieldcontemporarytheatre.org, by phone at (417)-831-8001 or in person at the Historic Fox Theatre Box Office, 157 Park Central Square. Ticket prices are $27 opening night and $32 for adults, $29 for seniors and students and $10 for student rush.
A post show discussion with members of the cast and creative team will take place following the Sunday, October 20, matinee & Thursday, October 24, performances. Shelton, Hillhouse and Teague will have a conversation with the audience about the production, the history of the production, theatre in general and any topic and questions that the audience brings up.