The audience sits in the auditorium, on edge as sounds sputter, lights flicker, and they see a faint glimpse of The Woman in Black. Then, darkness. The experience was enough to give some people nightmares.
However, the same theater company’s Sunday read throughs offer a more quirky side of entertainment. The actors meet in an art gallery to fight with swords, shoot each other with a Nerf gun, and imitate the sound effects of explosions, gunfire, and blood spatter.
Dwayne Blackaller, Kal Poole, and Scott Wilson are the founders of Whistling in the Dark Theatre Company, the group responsible for such behavior.
Corbin Jones, 21, a member of the group, described the peculiar fun Whistling in the Dark Theatre Company consistently performs.
“We’re kind of trying to make theater that’s fun and exciting as it would be to do when you were 12 years old,” said Jones. “When you were playing in your backyard and dressing up and pretending. We want to remember what that’s like and invite the audience along for the ride.”
Blackaller, Poole and Wilson were OSU theater students who graduated in spring 2009 with a master’s degree in fine arts.
The company was almost simultaneously created with their first staged production in autumn 2007, a drama titled, “The Woman in Black.” The play was a ghost story about a specter haunting a small English town, and it ran through Halloween weekend at Upper Arlington High School.
The production was simplistic. The backdrop was multiple layers of curtains directed in every direction with only one door in the background. The only other device was a large trunk used as many props such as a horse carriage and a desk. The rest of the show depended on light, sounds, and talent.
"When we had opening night...you know, stupid little scary play in this little theater in a high school, and that first night, kids were screaming their bloody heads off,” said Blackaller. “Then intermission came, and Scott (Wilson) and I went offstage and he was just beaming. He was like, 'Is this the most fun you've even had in your life?' And I was like 'Yeah.'”
Blackaller appreciates works with simple designs. Being an enthusiast for works like radio dramas, Blackaller says modern audiences rely too much on special effects.
“The spectacle is really awesome, but it’s only as good as the audience’s imagination,” said Blackaller.
Whistling in the Dark Theatre Company is still relatively new and after focusing on OSU, and Wilson leaving for Florida after graduation, the company has only performed “The Woman in Black.” The show was once performed around Halloween 2007 and again around Halloween 2009.
So, instead of staged plays, Whistling in the Dark Theatre Company has occupied its time with staged readings. Sundays@7 takes place on Sundays at 7 p.m. at the Shoebox, an art gallery in the South Campus Gateway, and cost $3. Here, audiences can watch staged readings of classical plays, new works, move scripts, and more.
One example was the reading of a rough draft of the movie “Predator,” then titled “The Hunter.” The performance was complete with OSU student Ben Fox impersonating Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blackaller creating sound effects with a mic and amp, and many of the actors alternatively taking turns as The Predator, shooting fellow actors with a Nerf gun when it was their turn to die.
Mahmoud Osman, 20, is an OSU theater undergrad who has participated in two of Whistling in the Dark Theatre Company’s staged readings.
“Sometimes the script you get is not 100 percent accurate with the movie,” said Osman. “It’s just really cool to hear different people and new ways of interpreting the characters of the script. Everyone brings their own thing to it.”
Audrey Rush, 21, an OSU theatre undergrad who participated in three readings said, “Everyone there really loves theater and this is what they would do in their spare time. And it’s Sunday, so let’s just screw around and read some new plays regardless of whether or not we’d actually be cast in that role."
The staged readings began after an incident where an event fell through and the company needed to cover with something. The result was a staged reading of the movie “Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back.”
Whistling in the Dark Theatre Company has performed more classical works in their staged readings such as Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” John Ford’s “Tis Pity She’s a Whore,” and a rendition of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1892 short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” But a string of reading 80s movie scripts is perhaps the most quirky.
The Shoebox provides an intimate atmosphere for the staged readings. There are multiple pieces of artwork along the walls including paintings, sketches, photographs, odd crafts, and more. For the event, about 30 folding chairs are set up on a half of the space, while the other half is open for the performers. Some performances have the actors seated while reading their lines, while other performances have the actors more active, such as sword fighting in “Tis Pity She’s a Whore.”
Sundays@7 also serves as a conduit for people to get involved with Whistling in the Dark Theatre Company.
"With this Sundays@7 series, we’re trying to provide an opportunity for our friends who might be interested in directing something, or friends who would be interested in reading something, or our friends who might be interested in having a piece of theirs read, to have a format or a venue for that kind of work,” said Poole.
One person benefiting from Whistling in the Dark Theatre Company is Liam Cronin, 21, the founder of a local sketch comedy group called Sketch by Number. The group has been able to perform in the Shoebox with its connections with Whistling in the Dark Theatre Company when the sketch group is not performing in other spaces such as the Black Box in the South Campus Gateway Film Center. Cronin believes their partnership can help both companies.
"Hopefully, eventually they can branch out and maybe that's what they're trying to do with their partnership with us, and that's what we're trying to do with our partnership with them,” said Cronin. “I hope it's mutually beneficial."
On March 17, Sketch by Number and Whistling in the Dark Theatre Company will be performing a combo show titled, “Sketching in the Dark.”
In the spring, Whistling in the Dark Theatre Company will be performing their next play, written heavily by Wilson and Blackaller, “The Science of Fiction.” It’s a three character play about a young H.G. Wells, an acclaimed science fiction author who wrote works such as “The Time Machine,” and “The Invisible Man.” The show will go on tour to theaters and schools.
Many performers helping Whistling in the Dark Theatre Company, including Jones and many of the actors in the Sundays@7 are or have been affiliated with The Ohio State University Theatre Department. Many of these people are undergrads.
Blackaller and Poole are still helping students even after their master’s program where they taught many OSU theater classes. Their mission statement on their Web site goes as far as saying “…foster the next generation of theatre professionals.” Poole described the effort to help with young actor’s transition from college or community theater to more distinguished theaters.
“One of the goals for the company is to be sort of a stepping stone into the professional world for recent graduates, to develop some credibility and some skills,” said Poole.
Columbus has a good amount of theatres whether professional or not, but Blackaller is not worried about competing for an audience.
“As long as people are doing art that they love, there will always be an audience for it,” said Blackaller.
Blackaller talking about modern audiences
Cronin talking about Whistling in the Dark partnership
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