CAST
(in alphabetical order)
KAREN ABRAMS (Narrator) is a school psychologist with an undergraduate background in dance and theatre. She has danced in productions of Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, The Nutcracker, and The Beggar’s Opera.
BRENDA BARY (Violet)
is an accomplished vocalist. She sings with the Mendelssohn Club and is a soloist and section leader at the Church of the Good Samaritan
Episcopal Church in Paoli. She has also been a guest vocalist with the Rose Tree Pops Symphony. A seasoned thespian, and the narrator
for an early Halloween show, she is delighted to return this year as Violet, the flower seller with a shady family background.
ILENE
DYLLER (Madame DuVive) burst upon the scene in 1996 as Madame DuVive in Séance at Midnight, reprising that role the following year
in The Medium and the Message. She served as narrator for The Curse of Anubis, played Adler, the second-in-command astronaut, in 3001:
The Shadow Planet, and was Marta, a night watchperson, in Night of the Golem. She was Her Majesty, the Queen, in The Alchemist’s Elixir and
Augusta Brown in last year’s Portrait of Evil. When she's not linking worlds, Ilene is a clinical psychologist in private practice
in
ROB HOLAWAY (Werewolf) was the “bloody hand” at the window in last year’s show, Portrait
of Evil. This year he graduates to the semi-speaking (or growling) role of the werewolf. When he isn’t busy frightening the townsfolk,
he is a doctoral candidate in
MARK SCHENKER (Sam) narrated A Knightmare to Remember and
came into his own as Parkins the
DENISE SLOAN (Ella) recently moved into the
PRODUCTION STAFF AND CREW
(in alphabetical order)
TIM ACKERSON (setup/teardown)
has worked on the crew since he moved to the area in 2000. A friend for over 30 years, he is the only person on the current production
(besides the Efrans) to have seen any of the decorated hallways in Rochester that started this tradition of productions. In ordinary
life, Tim is a Research Project Manager for the School of Nursing of the University of Pennsylvania.
DANIEL EFRAN (assistant
producer, associate director, scriptwriter) has been involved in all facets of the Halloween productions since 1974, most prominently
directing and acting as well as designing and constructing special effects. He starred as the hero in The Lost Temple of the Maya,
made a memorable impression as the poignant yet violent Rat Boy in Side-Show Spectacular, and has co-directed and co-written most
of the shows since 1988, doing much of the work long-distance, commuting and communicating from Pittsburgh, where he is an engineer
specializing in user interface design. He has also written original music for several of the shows and has videotaped a number of
productions. Sometimes described as having a Cecil B. deMille complex, he was saying things like "All we need is a laser" (eventually
borrowed from a physics lab for Space Pod) long before lasers were readily available for a few dollars at Staples. Daniel is the father
of Nicholas Adric Efran, whose first Halloween production was our swan song.
ELSA EFRAN (associate producer) is primarily responsible
for candy, catering, costumes, critiquing, crowd control, data, editing, errand running, graphics, painting, papier-mâché, publicity,
research, supplies, and last-minute odds and ends. She is still hoping that someday there will be a Nobel Prize for gofers. When not
consumed with Halloween, she works at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society keeping track of people and plants for the Philadelphia
Flower Show. Also a free-lance book editor and administrator for the Philadelphia Area Group Psychotherapy Society, she feels naked
without a computer and a red pen.
JAY EFRAN (producer, director, scriptwriter) has been involved in stagecraft and magic since
his youth. Little did he know that turning brown wrapping paper into "rocks" in order to create a witch's cave in a hallway in Rochester,
New York, in 1968 would lead to masterminding 35 years of Halloween productions. He is legendary for resurrecting a number of arcane
ways of making people and objects appear, disappear, emit smoke, and burst into flames—often simultaneously. Jay is Professor Emeritus
of Psychology at
FRANK
FARRELL (setup/crowd management) traveled all the way from
RYAN P. IRELAND (set construction), who is a Student Financial Services Representative at