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Third annual haunted house starts Friday
By Christina Rowland/ Staff Writer
Halloween comes around but once a year and for Carroll High and Carroll Senior High School students Halloween is very important. For eight days in October, the students get to show off their skills in their annual haunted house.
This year’s theme is ‘The Haunted Prison’. The students have been working on set design, costumes, and other aspects of the haunted house since the first day of school. This year’s house features 125 students. The annual haunted house is the theater department’s annual fundraiser.
“This is a fundraiser,” said theater teacher Stacie Martinsen. “The funds are earmarked to improve sound and lighting in the auditorium.”
The haunted prison opens at 7:30 p.m. Friday night.
When patrons first enter the prison they will walk up to large gates and enter. The first experience is the hall of foam to clean patrons, just as real prisoners are bathed before entering into the prison. Next patrons are sent to see the warden, where they are sentenced to their crime and sent to their cell.
“I am the warden,” said senior MC Ingram. “I sentence people and send them to their corresponding cells.”
The students have built a realistic-looking prison complete with cells that line the walls. After a guest is sentenced and sent to a cell, they are introduced to their cell mate -- a student actor. The guests are encouraged to escape the cell via a hole in the floor that leads them into a dark maze that runs under the floor.
Once the maze is conquered, guests move on to the morgue and through the rest of the prison trying to escape. The guests even get to see a musical number performed by the prisoners before they are finally chased out of the prison to freedom.
“Our audience is live-interactive,” Martinsen said. “Ninety-five percent of our show is improvised every night because each audience member is different.”
The advance theater students are required to participate in this production, but it is also open to any other interested students.
The students are also required to provide their own costumes for the show. This allows the students creative freedom with their costumes.
“I am wearing an orange jump suite, really scrubs, and I painted numbers on it,” said senior Logan Uhtenwoldt.
Martinsen and her husband, Roald, who is also a theater teacher at Carroll, come up with the theme each year and Mr. Martinsen also designs the set.
“I really enjoyed building the set,” Uhtenwoldt said. “It was just ridiculous this year and a lot of fun.”
Ingram considers parts of the prison scary and the maze is “crazy”, but for those guests with younger children angel escorts are offered and they take a less scary way through the prison.
Something else new this year is the fast pass, it costs twice the price of the regular ticket, but it allows guests to cut to the beginning of the line to get in.
This is an exciting production for the students, because they get a lot of creative freedom and get to interact with a live audience.
“It’s very different than a traditional show. I like the freedom to be able to interact with people,” Ingram said. “You (also) get to work with everyone in the department. It is really like our big production where we all come together.”
The Haunted Prison is the only haunted house in Southlake. It runs every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday the weekends of Oct. 17 to 19 and Oct. 24 to 26 and also Oct. 31 to Nov. 1. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. and close at 11:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at the door or online at dragondrama.net
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