Category: Fredericksburg Theater Company

The Best Haunted Thrill-The 290 Haunted House vs. The Theater of Terror

This year, the Fredericksburg area boasted two haunted houses for our Halloween enjoyment. The first and original for the area was Audelia Delacruz’s Haunted House,also know as The 290 Haunted House, which started at her house in Stonewall some years ago, but has been housed in the large white building on 290 East across from Trade Days for at least the last 3 years. The second, Theater of Terror, was hosted by the Freddyburg Youth Theater and the Fredericksburg Theater Company and took place at the Steve W.  Shepherd Theater or in reality the store-room there on the FTC facility grounds.

First let me say that I do not scare easy at these events.  I am more likely to get spooked walking around in my own house, or outside in the pasture in the dark than I am at a Halloween event. My own imagination and fear of animals that might attack, etc. in the dark are more likely to get me to jump. But that being said, I am always looking forward to the event that might scare me. To this end, I was very excited to attend these two events, just to see if they could scare me.

Both houses are put together by a collaboration of adults and teens/children and participation inside is both as well. One has several years experience of putting on a haunted house production, where the other is in its first year, unless I have somehow missed it in past years. If that is the  case please correct me. The latter has years of experience putting on theater productions. Both have the resources available to put on an exceptional production. Both have smoke, strobe lights, and dimly lit rooms. One also had other lights,  flashing or glowing things to add to the effects as well of lots of sound effects. Each also had a bit of narration.

Here is the major difference, props and costumes. One far out did the other. Any guesses on which one you think it was?

In one house, every participant was well costumed and fully make-upped so that they were the character they were playing and could not be easily recognized as themselves. In the other, this was not the case. I readily recognized several of them, though in costume, not nearly as well as the other house, and make up was little to none other than a bit of blood on the hands and maybe face.

One made full use of props and decorations, and created a unique theme for each room of the house, covering a multitude of creepy specters to incite your fears. There were people, scary statues,  and any number of things that left you waiting and wondering, “is it a real person or not and is it going to move and get me when I go by?” The other house had little difference between sets from room to room, and had almost the same theme in each.

One house also made much more use of the space they had available making the experience last longer, the other was considerably shorter. Sadly, in this second house, I was surprised to already be at the end. A literal, “that’s it???,” moment.

Another big difference was price, $5  for the 290 Haunted House verses $12 for the Theater of Terror.

I do give the participants props for all their hard work during the hours of operation  they made a valiant effort to scare their guests.  Even there when you consider one was a house of family and friend participants that are out to have a good time and provide the community some entertainment, and the other a theater arts group with the same goal, perhaps with a bit of fund-raising thrown in,  there was still a night and day difference between the two.  They do all deserve praise for all the before work organizing and setting these houses up, and now tearing them down.

Now before I tell you which was which  I have a question for you.  Think about the two groups,  which group would expect it to be?

The winner for me, this year was Audelia Delacruz’s  290 Haunted House. To answer the question, did it scare me? No it didn’t scare me, even though I was quite impressed with what all they had done and I did quite enjoy going through. It did make me jump and laugh at myself at least once, and it has done that every year. I will be back again next year.

So now to both groups, I can’t wait to see how you raise the bar next year.

 

 

 

 

Day 108- Final Summer Week High Lights

August has just gone by in a blur. Football began on the third so things have been busy. Brett made Varsity this year, so that is both a “Yeah” and an “Oh my are we ready for this?” Varsity has a lot more parent involvement than the sub varsity teams did. So the short answer is, yes, Brett is ready and we are proud of him. I am not, but that’s ok, because here we go anyway.

I am ready for game nights though. We went to the scrimmage in Lago Vista, and it was so much fun watching him play again. I just pray all goes well with no injuries. That is always my fear. Seeing him on the field taking down other players is just so exciting. Go Billies! They play the Lampasas Badgers this Friday to kick the season off.

Chelsea took a week off work before school started again and came home. We had a real nice week together. Tuesday, she and I went to the San Antonio Zoo, the river walk and the Spanish market. We were crazy and walked all around to the places in the downtown area. We put over 8 miles on our feet in the 100 degree heat. I know, what were we thinking. The simple answer was we didn’t want to have to move the car and pay another parking fee. The real truth of the matter is I believe the heat got to us. We had a great time and ate at the Original Mexican Restaurant on the river walk.

We were absolutely exhausted when it was all over and barely made the drive home. We even had to stop in Comfort at the Luvs to grab another drink and walk around a little.

Thursday after the scrimmage we went to the Austin airport to pick up Chelsea’s boyfriend, Guy, after which we stopped at Jim’s at the Y to eat and still made it home at the same time Brett did. One side note to this evening, the road to Lago Vista is unbelievable. That area has their own built-in roller coaster system they get to drive on a daily basis. I would not want to live there and drive that all the time. Poor Chelsea got car sick just getting there. That road makes “Devil’s Backbone” on  Highway 12 outside San Marcos seem to be a cake walk. The drive was definitely an adventure.

Friday was nice. We attended the Fair parade and then met my parents, brother and sister-in-law, and great-nephew for lunch at Enchanted Inn. Later that evening we went to the Gillespie County Fair.

While touring the grounds, we walked, visited and talked, which is actually one of the bigger high lights of the fair. You see people you don’t see the rest of the year, or don’t have time to visit with any other time. Later Steve went to the car and got our camp chairs because chairs were in short order around the dance floor. We sat  off the edge of the floor where there was a nice breeze and we quite enjoyed it there. Friends joined us bringing in their chairs as well.

Saturday, after lunch at Porky’s we went to James Kiehl park on the river in Comfort and just played around in the water. Guy made a make shift fishing rod from a line he found and a stick. We had equipment with us in the car,but he found this to be more fun. He didn’t catch anything but did have bites stealing his bait, and he saw a needle nose gar swim by. He had never seen one before and wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Later we returned to the fair with our chairs in hand to attend the dance.

Sunday morning we loaded up Chelsea and Guy and then went to a friend’s house, where we loaded up more stuff Chelsea had in storage there and sent to two of them on their way to Lubbock.  I always hate seeing her leave.

My mom and I had the opportunity to go see Fredericksburg Theater Company’s production of Greater Tuna. Mom has seen all but the Christmas Tuna from the original Greater Tuna plays and we were excited to see it here.

Before I say anymore about this, just let me say, that I love FTC and have never been disappointed in their shows. They are a top-notch group that Fredericksburg is so lucky to have. I am sure that all future performances will be just as award-winning as they have always been in the past. This is also not a direct reflection of FTC itself  or even the performers, only this particular play.

That being said, if you are sensing a ‘but’ in here, you are quite correct. Let me remind you that my mom has seen the originals, and she was ready to leave  this performance by the intermission. If we had we wouldn’t have been the only ones to do so. Most stayed through the whole performance, but there were some that left.

I had been so excited to see Greater Tuna because I had always heard so much about it both in media and from my parents, and I was so disappointed. This was so far below the standards of FTC. The humor was lame and lacking as was the story line. I did comment to mom at one point during one of the town news segments, that it was like watching an episode of the Doss News, which would have been more interesting. Shirley Lange could have written this and done a better job.

I read that they are planning to do the Greater Tuna Christmas as well. Honestly I think it would be better to quit while they are ahead, and go back to the type of magical stories and performances everyone is used to expecting and seeing at FTC. Yes it was sold out, but that was to be expected since they were per forming a play that had so much notoriety from its originals. As for Greater Tuna, mom and I agreed that this was just spoiled fish! Sorry if I offend anyone, you are entitled to your own opinion as am I, and this is mine and my  moms.

On the brighter side, at least mom and I had something to go do together, since we don’t seem to manage that very often. The evening and weekend ended well as we spent time visiting with my parents at Dairy Queen and then their house. And now it’s back to the grindstone with work and school returning. Have a wonderful school year all. Go Billies!!!