Hollywood Gothique

Raymond Barcelo, Skip Pipo, and MarcyK. Hiratzka in "A Ghost Story," one of a trio of tales in Production B.

So, you’re Halloween high has ended, and you feel your morose soul descending into the abyss of withdrawal. The zombies have returned to their graves. The vampyres have fled to where the ghouls and Afrits rave. The restless spirits have shuttered up their haunted house. The cannibal crazies have disappeared into the maze of the backwoods. The delusions have disappeared, and the ghosts ships have all set sail. What is left? What is left?

Fortunately for you, there is an answer to your question: Wicked Lit! These innovative theatre productions, based on classic horror literature and staged at the Mountain View Mausoleum and Cemetery, continue through Sunday, November 6. Some performances have already sold out, but there are still many tickets available, and prices have been discounted to start at $35 for Wednesday and Thursday, and $39 for Friday. Saturday and Sunday prices are $49.

There are two productions running simultaneously; both consist of three one-act plays. Production A (which we reviewed here) features “The Unnamable” by H.P. Lovecraft, “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, and “The Chimes” by Charles Dickens. Production B includes “The Body Snatcher” by Robert Louise Stevenson, “Casting the Runes” by M.R. James, and “A Ghost Story” by Mark Twain.

"The Cast of Amontillado" from Production A

Both productions begin promptly at 8:00pm. Story guides, in character and costume appropriate to the setting for each story, guide you to the location where the action takes place, be it the exterior cemetery of the interior corridors of the mausoleum. The audience then follows the action as it unfolds in real time, in real locations. The immersive impact is quite impressive, yielding some genuinely hair-raising thrills that are less overtly shocking but more deeply disturbing that the jump-scares at the Halloween Haunts we were enjoying all last month.

Production A continues through Saturday, November 5. Production B continues through Sunday, November 6.

The Mountain View Mausoleum and Cemetery is located at 2300 N. Marengo Avenue in Altadena, California.

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.wickedlit.org.