Spirits are high among volunteers of the Strand Theatre Initiative who are staging the second annual Northern Nightmares Halloween Festival to raise funds for the renovation of the 92-year old theater on Main Street in Zelienople.
The festival, which begins Friday at 6 p.m. and continues on Friday and Saturday nights through Oct. 28, features family-friendly activities that focus more on fun than fright, although a few events offer chills and thrills, said Ron Carter, executive director of the Strand Theater Initiative.
"People love Fright Night; the feedback has been overwhelming," Carter said.
Last year's month-long festival attracted 600 people, netting about $4,000 for the Strand Theater Initiative, Carter said. "Now that the community is aware of the event, we expect a larger attendance and hope to raise even more money for the initiative."
The non-profit Strand Theater Initiative was formed in 2001 to raise $2.1 million to refurbish and reopen the historical Strand Theater. The theater, which was built in 1914, has been vacant for the past 20 years. The group plans to use it as a community entertainment venue featuring plays, live musical productions, independent film festivals and screenings of classic films, Carter said.
The group is halfway through raising funds for the capital campaign and within 90 days, work should begin on the theater's interior, Carter said.
A new theater marquee erected last year lights up and beautifies Zelienople's Main Street every night, Carter said. If all goes well, renovation of the 400 seat theater could be completed as early as the end of 2007, he said.
An avid supporter of the Strand Theater Initiative, Kathie Potemra of Ellwood City, volunteers her time as a storyteller on the Nightmare Bus Tour, which stops at spooky locales in Zelienople and Harmony.
During the bus tour, Potemra tells a ghostly tale written by the winner of a story-telling contest for seventh to 12th grade students in the Seneca Valley School District.
Last year's winner, Julia Williams, a seventh grader from Zelienople, wrote about a person who was murdered in the Strand Theater and came back as a ghost to haunt it. The tour bus stopped in front of the theater, where the sidewalk in front of the lobby was enshrouded in fog and a ghostly apparition was seen under the marquee, Potemra said.
"Everyone truly enjoyed the tour last year," said Potemra, who has a background as an actress, director and producer in community theaters. "The festival is a fun event to help raise money for the Strand. It's not gore, just an old-fashion, basic scare with someone coming around the corner and jumping out at you," she said.
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