Hyperion Players hopes to haunt audiences

The Hyperion Players is not your average community theater company. They do different things, and they do things differently. Hyperion has quickly gained a reputation for staging plays that are “edgy,” taking chances not often seen in the community theater community.

This month, Hyperion is staging a scary story where the suspension of disbelief may morph into a belief in otherworldly affairs.

The Woman in Black will be on stage at The Switch Theatre, 10029 E. 126th St., Fishers, from Oct. 24 through Nov. 2.

Graphic provided

In most community theater companies, a director will approach the board with one or more plays and ask for approval to stage a show. That is not at all how Director Liz Carrier came to be at the helm for The Woman in Black.

“Adam Fike is the technical director at Hyperion Players and [this play] has been on his shortlist for a long time,” Carrier told The Reporter. “When I applied to direct for Hyperion, Ian, the executive director, had seen something that I directed that was similarly atmospherically driven and thought this would be a good fit. So that’s how we landed on it.”

Carrier called that process unique in her experience.

“I was just starting to look into other directing opportunities outside of what I had been doing,” Carrier said. “I said that I was very interested in directing for Hyperion, and they responded with this show. Hyperion has a commitment to growth, excellence, and communication. To find a community of theater artists that are committed to making something really great to the best of their abilities is really lovely. They always pick these well-written small-cast shows that they know they can execute with excellence in a way that I really respect.”

In the case of The Woman in Black, that cast is small indeed. There are only two actors.

“The show follows Arthur Kipps, who had a run-in with a ghost of sorts decades ago, and he has been haunted – at least in his sleep – ever since,” Carrier said. “He’s not been able to feel true peace since this experience he had with this ghost, so he hires an actor to assist him in telling this story for the very first time.”

Having sat with this story all this time in isolation, Kipps hopes that in telling it, it will exorcize this spirit that has haunted him.

“They go about actually turning it into a play,” Carrier said. “I think what’s really clever about recontextualizing the original novel in the theater space with this actor is that it puts our audience at a very uncomfortable and wonderful close proximity to the happenings in the show. In a way where it feels like if it’s happening to these characters, it might as well be happening to you.”

There are elements of the supernatural, discussion of death, and some potentially scary moments that make this play best suited for more mature audiences. Carrier told The Reporter to think of it like a PG-13 movie.

The Woman in Black is scheduled for six performances on Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 24 through Nov. 2. All performances will be at The Switch Theatre, 10029 E. 126th St., Fishers, which is located inside Ji-Eun Lee Music Academy.

The show will run two hours with one 15-minute intermission. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at HyperionPlayers.com/tickets or at the door.

Photos provided