Checklist of Things That Are Scary:

A creepy, century-old building—Check.

A playhouse that is possibly already haunted—Check.

Boiler rooms—Check.

Steam pipes—Check.

Hundred-year-old pully-operated creaking metal doors—Check.

Dank cellars—Check.

Labyrinthine hallways—Check.

Victorian parlors—Check.

Twitching multi-eyed things—Check.

Gasmasks—Check.

Droves of inhuman beasties —Check.

Antiquated mechanisms—Check.

Lots and lots of darkness—Check.

Things that jump out at you in said darkness—Check.

Creepy thing in corner with teeth—Check.

Wicked-cool, eerie soundscape—Check.

Big, big men who chase you—Check.

Little tiny rooms that we lock you in—Check.

Half a Week Away

We are roughly half a week away from our opening night, and I’m thrilled at how the Haunted House is coming together. The artists and collaborators on this project have continued to floor me with their vision, talent, and penchant for creating exquisite and horrible scenarios.

photo by Chad Heird

From its inception, I wanted the Haunted House to be as dense, saturated, and startling as a bad dream. An immersive world that you can’t ever quite see the edges of. The combination downtown installation and performance artists - whose work walks that fine line between the unsettling and the sumptuous - and a team of ridiculously talented performers and collaborators has created a sprawling, fully designed experience chock-full of terrifying, stunning scenes and settings.

I am amazed at what they have done.

In rehearsals I feel like I’m in a beautiful nightmare.

Our fantastic team of collaborators includes: Nikki Berger, Elizabeth Carena, Andrea Dohar, Colleen Ehrlich, Geoffrey A. Ehrlich, Arianne Gallagher, Andres Gonzalez, Jesse Green, Kat Green, Chad Heird, Natalia Johnson, Russell Kaplan, Sara Kipp, Marissa Marshall, Dan Meltz, Zach Morris, Meiko & the Light Module, Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, Liz Sargent, Brigid C Scruggs, Debra Stunich, Ava Szilagi, Phebe Taylor, Matthew Wagner, Carlton Ward, Barry Weil, Kryssy Wright, and the utterly rockstar ensemble from Abrons Urban Youth Theater.

...stretches of desolate hallways, claustrophobic encounters with shifting forms, hidden menaces, parlors of monstrosities, gear powered mechanisms, rooms full of creeping, inhuman beings, and mobs of slowly encroaching horrors...

Dude, I'm so stoked

-Zach

The Making of the Steampunk Haunted House

(photos by Liz Sargent & Zach Morris)

Hey all! We thought we'd give you a sneak peak at the making of the Steampunk Haunted House. Following are some behind-the-scenes shots of the costuming process.

Costume Designer Colleen Ehrlich and Marissa Nielsen-Pincus laying out costumes for various sections of the House

Gloves, cuffs, hats, metal-y bits, odds and ends that were the basic elements that we started with.

...and here's an example of what that all turned into...

photo by Chad Heird

Buy Tickets Now

Trailer for Steampunk Haunted House

Steampunk Haunted House Trailer from Third Rail Projects on Vimeo.
October 28, 29, 30, 31
at the Abrons Art Center
For more info and tickets visit
thirdrailprojects.com

Steampunk Haunted House

Created by Zach Morris/Third Rail Projects

photo by Chad Heird

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS
Enter an immersive world of churning gears, mechanical monstrosities, and steam-powered cyborgs in New York’s newest haunted house. Created by contemporary performance and installation artists, the Steampunk Haunted House sprawls throughout the Abron's century-old Playhouse for a terrifying, visually stunning experience.

Conceived and created by Bessie Award-winner Zach Morris, with Elizabeth Carena, Jesse Green, Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, Liz Sargent, Brigid C. Scruggs, Barry Weil, Kryssy Wright, and featuring members of Abrons' Urban Youth Theater

Tours run:
Wednesday, Oct 28th & Thursday, Oct 29th
6:00pm-9:30pm
Admission: $20 (Students $10)*

Friday, October 30th & Saturday, Oct 31st
8:00pm-11:30pm
Admission $25 (Students $10)*

*No one under 8 years old admitted

LOCATION:
Henry Street Settlement/Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street (at Pitt Street), New York, NY
Steampunk: an underground style and aesthetic that is rapidly becoming one of the most popular trends in entertainment, fashion, and culture. Steampunk offers a fresh, romanticized view on technology and fashion by making it retro, usually set in an alternate, anachronistic Victorian-era.

The Steampunk Haunted House is a distinctive, fine-art and entertainment event that puts a new spin on the idea of Haunted Houses by fashioning a lush, visually stunning, fiercely designed and choreographed experience.

Utilizing the architecture of the historic Henry Street Settlement Playhouse, the Steampunk Haunted House features a maze of dense and dizzying environments that wind through the beautiful theater, backstage, and down into the cavernous and dungeon-like basement of the turn of the century building. Groups of 6-10 people are incrementally admitted into this labrynthine environment where Zach Morris, along with fellow installation/performance artists Liz Sargent and Barry Weil terrify audiences with clockwork spiders, legions of half-man/half-machine drones, and mechanized monsters and misfits. Through eerie parlors, laboratories, boiler rooms, and navigating dark, narrow hallways, corridors, and caverns, the audience is met with startling, stunning terrors around every turn.

Like most attractions of it’s kind, this Is roughly a twenty-minute experience.

Vanishing Point, Live at the Gantries

Tom Pearson & Zach Morris

with Kris Bauman & The Dang-It Bobbys

Live at The Gantries will present excerpts from Tom Pearson & Zach Morris's Bessie Award-winning work Vanishing Point (2008), featuring original music by Kris Bauman, played live by The Dang-It Bobbys on Tuesday, August 11, 2009 at 7pm as part of their summer performance series in Queens.

"the dance equivalent of a peaceful, ruminative discussion with a few close friends, drinks in hand" – Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times
Read more about Vanishing Point.

 Queens, NY – The Live at the Gantries summer performance series returns with a celebrated and diverse roster including Bessie-awarded site-specific choreographers Zach Morris and Tom Pearson of Third Rail Projects and legendary street brass marchers, the Hungry March Band.

For the second straight year East River oasis Gantry Plaza State Park will host 10 free performances. The series kicks-off Sunday, June 14th with the Hungry March Band then returns on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. from June 23rd through August 26. The rich array of performers ranges from the rhythmic Latin jazz of Afrodita to the eclectic drama of Chinese Theatre Works. Read the Press Release.

A Program of New York State Parks, Queens Theatre in the Park and Queens Council on the Arts, Sponsored by Rockrose Development Corp. With support from Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, O’Connor Capital Partners, Con Edison 

Mesa 2.0 at La MaMa and NMAI

This weekend and in June
Tom Pearson, Louis Mofsie, & Donna Ahmadi
perform their newest collaboration, MESA 2.0, for La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival and at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York. 


See Performance Dates and Details Below
"Ideas of home, heritage, ceremony, and tradition, as seen through the eyes of some urban Indians from New York City visiting the American Southwest" – Native Peoples Magazine

Created and performed by Tom Pearson (Creek/Coharie), Louis Mofsie(Hopi/Winnebago), and Donna Ahmadi (Cherokee), this contemporary dance was borne from shared travels in the Southwest and examines what it means to be urban Indians, specifically New Yorkers. Ideas of home, ceremony, and tradition share the stage with the multiple sounds and images of three people walking together in two worlds.
Mesa 2.0 is supported, in part, by a Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian 2008 Expressive Arts Award made possible by the Ford Foundation; by the Live Music for Dance Program of the American Music Center; and by Third Rail Projects, with support from individual and institutional donors.
At LaMaMa E.T.C.:
La MaMa Moves! Dance FestivalAMERICAN HYBRIDS:
Mesa 2.0 by Tom Pearson, Louis Mofsie, & Donna Ahmadi
on a shared program with with Monstah Black & Nicholas Leichter
HIJACK/Kristen Van Loon & Arwen Wilder
May 22-23 (Fri & Sat) at 10pm;
May 24 (Sun) at 5:30pmThe Club at La MaMa
4A East 4th St. NY, NY 10003

Tickets $15/$10 Seniors & Students
Purchase tickets online
Box Office:212.475.7710
Or visit LaMaMa's website for tickets and further information on festival

At the National Museum of the American Indian:NMAI Dance presents Mesa 2.0
Thursday, June 4, 2009, 6:30 p.m.
Saturday, June 6, 2009, 2 p.m.
FREE EVENTThe George Gustav Heye Center
Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House
One Bowling Green
New York, NY 10004
212-514-3700
Visit NMAI's Website