Update: Congratulations on a sold out run! The Vancouver Courier had a great article in the most recent edition and can be read here.

Too early for a Halloween blog post?  Never.  Especially when it’s about In the House’s third annual Halloween production.

I’ll shortly be posting last year’s show review, so that you have an idea of what you would have been treated to.  I have no clue what Myriam Steinberg and Chris Murdoch have in store for us this year, but really, don’t think, just book your tickets and enjoy the ride.

*All content lovingly lifted from the In the House Festival website.

——————————————–

THE haunted house of the year is coming! If you think the last two years were fabulous, just wait to see what we have in store this time! Can you guess? Can you hear the little imp whispering it in your ear? Or maybe you’ve been hobnobbin with some goblins or flirty flirtin’ with some faeries and they broke the news to you? That’s right! If you haven’t guessed yet, it’s an adventure into Faerieland (and not the Tinkerbell kinda faerie either)!

On nights like Hallowe’en, the realm of Faerie breaks through the thin veil that separates it from the earthly world. Join us on a journey where the Mysterious, the Magical and the Mythical meet at the crossroads of the Terrifying and the Tantalizing. Beastliness and Beauty will greet your every sense. Breathtaking visual artistry and stunning live performances including aerial circus, bellydance, theatre, puppetry, physical comedy, opera, hula hooping and music make this a haunted house like no other.

13 different Faerie environments will make your heart pound with fear, excitement and wonder. The macabre and the outrageous, the evil and the hilarious, heart-wrenching beauty and soul-stirring sadness will all come together for an evening of unavoidable mirth.

October 29-31, 2011
Time: First tour is at 6:15 pm and leaves on the half hour

Address: Will be revealed to you on registration
Tickets:  35$ adult / 30$ Students and members

Cryptopher Murdoch:   A child of night and dark alchemy, Cryptopher Murdoch is a master manipulator of objects and perceptions. Born on the haunted plains, son of an exiled family, he traveled the Americas and the southern hemisphere, leaving a trail of broken altars and minds in his wake. Cryptopher arrived on the West Coast in 2005, to infiltrate the circuses and sideshows with his brand of darkness and madness, and to revel in the grey rains.

www.arielamara.ca Ariel:   Ariel was born near a thick forest where mushroom rings often sprouted. Her parents suspect that she is touched by the fae or that perhaps she was switched at birth. Her obsession with circles as well as her contiuned interest in being abnormally tall, playing with burning objects and generally clowning around and wearing glitter seem to support their suspicions. Ariel enjoys a good journey and has traveled the globe (perhaps even other realms) meeting other wild circus folk and helping children find their inner faery nature. You never know where she might pop up next…

Crusher:   She’s trolling around as we speak. Look out! This resident shapeshifter has been lurking around East Vancouver and working with the likes of the Dusty Flower Pot Cabaret and the Public Dreams Society. A sordid history in shady ventures have left crusher with a bone breaking obsession that she just can’t seem to stop… her knowledge of anatomy can make things particularly painful.

Christache Ross:   Chris Ross is a Vancouver-based performer who comes from a background as a professional television and film actor and improv theatre player. In recent years he has branched off to explore characters and narratives in various theatrical mediums, from puppetry and masks to mime and clown.

DJ Bombus:   His beats will keep you dancing on and on. You won’t be able to help it. You just won’t. Really.

www.joannacs.com Joanna Chapman-Smith:   Joanna Chapman-Smith is a powerful young woman who has been making waves on the folk scene since 2002. Alone on stage, sitting atop a percussion rig made out of a suitcase and outnumbered by instruments, she charms crowds into singing along and letting themselves be carried away into her world that questions right and wrong, mind and body, permanence and impermanence. At 25 years old she has already traveled across Canada, the US, Europe and New Zealand. She has released 2 solo records, the most recent of which, “Contraries,” was awarded an IMA Award in the “Best Acoustic Song” category. Joanna also  works frequently with contemporary choreographers, touring theatrical productions and live circus performances.  She is currently working on a solo show she will tour in the fall of 2010.

Lost & Found Puppet Co.:   Maggie is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, NY, where she studied experimental performance and puppetry. Some of Maggie’s puppet shows have been featured in Earth(ling): A Festival for Youth, Activism, and Art, Firehall Arts Centre, Vancouver Fringe Festival, Western Front, In the House Festival, and Walking Fish Festival. She has been involved with “We’re All in This Together”: The Shadows Project, Vancouver Moving Theatre and “Condemned” a DTES Community Opera. Maggie is a theatre instructor for children ages 2-19 at Arts Umbrella and a puppeteer for Kids on the Block, and educational puppet company. She is the founder of Lost and Found Puppet Co.

Meris Lynn Goodman:   Raised in a musical family, Meris began to explore voice, piano and flute at the age of 11. She has since attempted to collect as many instruments as possible. In addition she thought she might also try to collect as many types of performance as she could. Now a multidisciplinary performer and trained classical singer, Meris seeks to combine opera singing with clowning, dance, and circus arts to shake the establishment of grand opera, and make it more accessible to audiences in grassroots theatre environments. It has pleased her greatly to bring all of these aspects to her performance to The Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret, namely in the role of The Seeker in 2009′s performance of The Listening Jar. In addition, she takes great pleasure in being part of the renowned movement/mime troupe, The Ladies in White, and the Vancouver Thriller Dancers. She was delighted to bring her voice to the 2009 In the House Festival with Renegade Opera. She has previously performed with UBC Opera and studied with soprano Karen Nimereala-Acampora and tenor Roelof Oostwoud.

Ria Vaupotic (performer):   Born on the night of all Hallow’s Eve, it is rumored that the moment she entered this world, a cry rang out so ghostly and haunted, it could not have possibly belonged to a human child. This cry made the very earth shudder. Not belonging entirely in this realm, death knocked on her door five times when she was not yet two years old. Stubbornly she pushed it back. Now, don’t look in her eyes for more than a minute, or death will claim you in her place.

www.naomi-eliana.ca Naomi Steinberg:   Naomi has told stories in places as varied as the 11th Annual International Storytelling Festival in Vancouver, Canada to the “Science Meets Dharma” project in Southern India. She has developed workshops for schools in Morocco, Switzerland and Vancouver as well as for the Cortona Conference in Tuscany, Italy.

travisthemagician.blogspot.com Travis Bernhadt:   Vancouver born and raised, magician Travis Bernhardt is known for his one man theatre show, Things That Never Happen (a runner-up for the Pick of the Fringe award at the 2010 Vancouver Fringe Festival), and for his stage work with Vancouver’s premier burlesque troupe, the Screaming Chickens Theatrical Society. He produces the Cabaret of Wonders, a neo-vaudevillian variety show and is one of Canada’s top street magicians.

www.myspace.com/luciterradance Luciterra:   Amber, Gillian, Jean Grey and Naomi Joy collectively form the Vancouver-based Tribal Fusion Bellydance troupe, Luciterra. Luciterra dances an intensely feminine and edgy fusion of old world vocabularies with new school stylings to create an effect that is elusive, powerful and compelling. Subverting socially constructed binaries with a multidimensional representation of femininity, they believe in the transformative power of sensual and proud performance. Selected performance highlights include the Shambhala Music Festival, Sistahood Celebration, Workless Party Parties, Dollhouse Studios and the In the House Festival.

Ryan Trigg:   Ryan Trigg has dabbled in the art of sound design as a hobby for a number of years and has recently started applying his skills to theatrical productions and animation films. Designing sounds for a dining experience is a first for Ryan, and he hope to aid in the process of digestion with stimulating and creative sound vibrations. Ryan is currently attending the School of Music at Vancouver Community College.

Oh and watch out for Itsazoo’s Halloween production called Debts: at historic Roedde house downtown.  I’ll post when information becomes available.