Copperas Cove Junior High haunted house is sure to scare
Special to Leader-Press
If you experience coulrophobia, the fear of clowns, you should stay out of the clown room at the Copperas Cove Junior High’s haunted house held Thursday-Saturday at the Copperas Cove Civic Center.
The Creepy Clown Room is one of four rooms along with the Bloody Butcher Room that will turn the civic center into a frightful building that is expected to send young and old alike screaming from the building, said CCJHS Theater Arts Teacher Claudia Briggs.
“This was a perfect project for my theatre tech class and for theatre art students,” Briggs said. “My tech class has planned the haunted house from the beginning. They have created four scary rooms and a blacklight haunted trail.”
Students were divided into four groups and were required to brainstorm, create a floor plan of their ideas, and then do a scaled perspective drawing of what the rooms will look like completed. They planned what props would be needed in the rooms, characters to do the scaring, costume design, makeup design, lighting, sound, and all of the components needed to frighten house guests this Thursday through Saturday at the civic center.
“All props have been created from scratch using what supplies we had in our tech theatre materials, costume closet or wherever else we could find what was needed,” Briggs said. “Students have learned to take a project from the planning stages, to installing the haunt, to characterization of scary characters, and to working in the haunted house.”
The CCJHS Theatre and Choir Departments collaborated on the project with choir handling the sound as well as helping with setup, tear down, and nightly operation of the house. More than 50 students will fulfill character roles in one of the four rooms.
Theater Tech eighth grader Keme Whitehurst took the lead in the butcher room.
“Our group researched horror movies and games and all contributed ideas on what to create that would truly be terrifying,” Whitehurst said. “It was hard to put everyone’s ideas together on how to make the props. Overall, it has been a great learning experience.”
Students also learned about the physical stage, performance area, terminology for the stage, stage direction, lighting, and other technical aspects of working backstage during a performance.
Eighth graders Zoey Eyler and Jakobi Jackson have the lead in the Creepy Clown Room.
“It was really fun creating all of the props for our room and selecting costumes and then altering them for the clowns,” Eyler said. “Sometimes it was difficult to get everyone to work together, but we were able to accomplish the vision that we had for the room. Be prepared to be scared beyond your wildest imagination.”
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If you go…
What: Copperas Cove Junior High Terror Under the Blacklight Haunted House
When: Oct. 29 & 29, 6 p.m.-8 p.m., Oct. 30, 5 p.m.-8 p.m.
Where: Copperas Cove Civic Center, 1206 W. Ave. B, Copperas Cove
Who: Open to all ages
Cost: $2 per person with all proceeds benefitting CCJHS Fine Arts