Context: there's a local haunted house called Scare For A Cure that raises money for charity and is fully volunteer run. (Last year raised $50k for the Breast Cancer Research Center and also distributed thousands in scholarships and other donations). Additionally this isn't your typical "here's a series of themed rooms and spooks and nothing more", Scare runs a full plotline with interactivity, you do stuff and have a story you're participating in... in addition to getting shot with about a half dozen gore cannons within one hour...

I've been volunteering in different roles throughout the month, with some interruptions here and there. On Saturday, the final night of the event, I was resetting "Jekyll and Hyde's secret storeroom". This involved sneaking in behind groups to replace the mcguffin (a vial of serum) and reset the exit portal. Normally this involves sneaking down the hallway as soon as they're in the storeroom, waiting for the moment they exit the store room to slip in, reset it, then slip back out into the hallway and out a side door... but if groups run close together, I might have to wait in the store room as one group enters the hallway and the next group lingers in the next space, the moment they leave I slip out the door behind them and slip between the buildings to get back to my starting position.

One group however... they were moving so slow and had zero consideration for the fact that there's a production that cares about timing... they caused 2 groups to pile up right behind them. So resetting after them I had to duck into the next room instead of returning back... but then the group right after them was stuck waiting a really long time in that space before they could move forward while another group was in the hall... I literally had nowhere to go and by the sound cues there was only seconds before they came in the room and the group ahead wasn't even starting to leave...

I dropped into the fetal position, started sobbing about how Jekyll killed everyone and just played the victim who was completely broken and hiding, and when they left i cried about how it wasn't safe out there (the portals all led to "in between" spaces where "The Hunter" was).

Funnily enough the guide for that group was the casting director and the actor playing Jekyll/Hyde was one of the main co-directors of the show watching through a crack in the wall going "oh shit" at seeing me still in there.

The actual official plan for that happening was to just suck it up and let it happen... nobody counted on me coming up with split second improvisation to maintain immersion...

#improv #acting #volunteering #charity #panic