The Howling Hollow Repertory House Presents (Haunted) Hamlet

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Near this spot is the Book 'Um Mobile. Normally, the Book 'Um Mobile rolls into Howling Hollow at the start of the school year so that students have easy access to books and other educational material. However, after the sharp rise in tourists in town, the Book 'Um Mobile crew decided to capitalize on the travel spike and permanently park their truck near Bubba's Garden Restaurant in order to sell books to the tourists. This has, in turn, shifted their inventory to focus on books about hauntings and cryptids, as well as the town in general.

The Howling Hollow Repertory House is the newest building in town, custom-built for the theater’s expansive productions, while paying tribute to the original theater, which burned down 5 years prior when Billy Lugosi’s monster of the month decided to run inside of there instead of the Washboard Suites’ Windmill Villa.

While being a highly modern building, the inside evokes the feeling of early vaudeville houses, with ornate decorations (some of which was salvaged from the old theater) and Victorian Gaslamp-esque light fixtures. The only distinctly Howling Hollow decorations in the building are the taxidermy animal heads hanging on the walls.

Howling Hollow Repertory House Employee Costumes. Since I knew that this location was going to combine the looks of both a vaudeville house and a hunting lodge, the costumes had to be something out-of-the-box but still unmistakably that of a theater usher. While I combined the costume pieces of multiple usher costumes that I referenced, what I decided to switch up were the colors. The costume still uses red, gold, and black, but I put a lot more emphasis on the black and darkened the red, as well as added gold trim. In the end, I ended up with a look that appears "spooky" but still feels ornate.

The 500-seat theater is just as ornate as the lobby, with elaborate decorations aplenty and ample space for everyone to clearly see the stage. The curtain on the stage clearly displays the name of the production that we are about to see: Hamlet: The Prince of Denmark. However, observant guests may notice that not all is right in this proscenium. Anyone looking into the antique looking glasses may spot a well-dressed shadowy figure moving about the audience and the word “Haunted” will appear briefly and faintly from time to time above the name on the curtain.

At long last, the curtain rises, and the cast of the show welcomes the audience to their theater, especially Shakespearian actor Hughwellen Thistle-More XVII. However, the house lights shut off and plunge the whole auditorium in darkness. When the lights return, the ghost of Matthew Ravencraft, the actor who died in the theater, appears before the cast (via Pepper’s Ghost) and threatens to trap everyone in the theater for all time unless he is granted his encore. But the cast is able to placate the spirit by offering him the role of the King’s Ghost in the play. The spirit of Matthew, while a little miffed at being typecast, agrees to play the role, but they soon discover that there are not enough actors to play all of the characters. Hughwellen pulls some promising thespians from the audience to portray some of the play’s minor characters.

This performance is an abridged retelling of the famous tale, with issues and mistakes amongst the cast and crew resulting in the show’s comedy. Once the play ends, Matthew is pleased and retires to the dressing rooms backstage. All of the guests who performed onstage receive a certificate of being a (very novice) student of Shakespearian Theater.

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