OCTOBER 15-21. 2015 ------------Cover Story • Haunted Hotel: 13th Floor --------- A Terrible Night’s Sleep By Mark Hunter Once inside, the characters showing the way through the dark and spooky bowels of the hotel leave Old hotels are naturally scary places. The short, you with the sense that you have indeed entered an- lumpy beds prevent sleep, the moldering carpets foul other world. Their blank stares tell a tale of unspeak- the air and the feckless showers lack the will to alter able horror. The guests you encounter are by turns the flight path of a mosquito. And don’t get me started hysterical and expressionless. Don’t bother asking for on the colonies of restless spirits inhabiting these so- extra towels or the directions to the heated pool. called quaint inns of yesteryear (not exactly sure who A maid calling herself Elizabeth sets the tone. She calls them that, but whatever). knows nothing of her previous life. She cannot re- People whine, call the fire or her “but they’re so full death. But from the of history.” His- look on her face tory schmistory. and the state of her As I recall, I slept mind you know through history that whatever hap- quite nicely. My pened to her was transcripts prove horrific. that. But as far as I The desk 5)&#*((&454)080'5)&:&"3 can tell I’ve never clerks, too, have gotten a wink in the look and de- any lodgings built meanor of lost prior to the first souls as they direct Roosevelt admin- you toward the 8&%/&4%": /07&.#&3 istration. dining room where %003401&/ũ1. 4)085*.&ũ1. Which brings someone’s birthday me to the War- party is underway. &.#"44:5)&"53& wick Hotel in Hint: Don’t eat the 5*$,&540/4"-&/08"5&.#"44:5)&"53&#090''*$& Huntington. The cake. It appears to Warwick Hotel have been baked is not a place I by Betty Cadaver. would recommend Order a fort wayne dance collective presents for your nightly zombie when you eight hours. In get to the lounge. the first place, the It will help to wash structure burned down the compli- to the ground al- mentary maggots most exactly 101 and peanuts. It will years ago, October also steady your 13, 1904. In the gaze as you enter second place, the the elevator to the Haunted Hotel, the 13th floor, where vertical morgue the real nightmare constructed to re- begins. place it, resonates A haunt is from the painful only as good as the screams of the actor who portray hapless guests and the victims. And the obsequious employees who HAUNTED HOTEL: 13TH FLOOR roasted that night a century ago. Especially on the 13th floor. It’s a great place to test your vital 7-11 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays thru Oct. 31 organs for soundness, including your bladder, & 7-9:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29 but not so good for sleep inducement. 515 N. Jefferson St., Huntington Period newspaper accounts tell of the won- drous marvels of modernity within the walls of Tix: $12-$20, www.hauntedhuntington.com the Warwick Hotel. Built by Damian Warwick in 1889, the hotel boasted telephones, electric lights there are always victims in haunts. There is always and a movie theater. But, as hotel owners and care- some evil, invisible force compelling the action, driv- October 16 & 17 takers are wont to do, Warwick murdered his young ing it forward to some illogical conclusion. Whatever Urban 2015 family, torched the place with 302 guests tossing and that force is called – Hairy Thunderer or Cosmic Muf- turning in their tiny beds and then hightailed it out of fin – it cannot be avoided. The Haunted Hotel 13th 7pm and 9pm there. Check-out time came early that day. Floor has plenty to go around. Screams The story of the Warwick Hotel is true, of course. In this case, it is called Damian Warwick. War- Located at Fort Wayne Dance Collective The Haunted Hotel 13th Floor will make you believe wick disappeared after the fire. But before the blaze, $15 adults Elliot Studio Theatre it all the more. From the moment you enter the build- which most people believed he set, his daughter Lilith $13 students 437 E. Berry St. Downtown, Fort Wayne ing at 515 N. Jefferson in downtown Huntington, you and his wife Anastaise met with untimely ends. His sense that the rumors of its being haunted are factual. wife was found hanging in her room while Lilith van- A video plays in a loop at the top stairs leading to the ished completely, leaving only her child’s nightgown FOR TICKETS CALL FWDC AT 260.424.6574 OR GO TO FWDC.ORG Haunted Hotel lobby. In the video, Eldon, the dement- and favorite doll behind. ed head bellhop, explains the story of the hotel and the Fort Wayne Dance Collective is a principal partner of Arts United of Greater Fort Wayne, and supported in part by the Indiana Arts Commission, Continued on page 11 the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, the Foellinger Foundation and other generous funders. journey you are about to take. 2 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.whatzup.com ------------------------------------------------------------October 15, 2015 whatzup Volume 20, Number 11 e’re midway through October, which means that those of you who like being scared witless have just a couple of weeks remaining in which to explore the area’s haunted jails, school houses, psych Wwards, hotels and what have you. This week we bring you the last of our fea- tured haunts, Huntington’s Thursday, Nov. 5 • 8pm • FREE Haunted Hotel, the old CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE Warwick, into which our With four local theatre productions involving WBOI MEET intrepid reporter Mark two Director’s Notes and two Curtain Calls last UPCOMING EVENTS Hunter and photographer week, we were bound to screw something up, and so Libby Huffer ventured last we did. The Director’s Notes THE MUSIC for Fort Wayne Youtheatre’s week. Huffer’s gruesome production of Lord of the photos grace our cover Flies had the right director’s and Hunter’s report which photo, but we inadvertently begins on page 2. credited the notes to Thom Hofrichter, whose own Di- Also featured this week is rectors Notes (for His Eye Is on the Sparrow) appeared on October 15 | 7:30pm Friday, Nov. 6 • 8pm • $10-$20 Mikki White, star of First the previous page. Presbyterian Theater’s As it happens, we JOHN O’CONNELL one-woman show chroni- attended last Saturday’s BLACK VIOLIN THE RAGBIRDS cling the life of Broadway performance of Lord of the Flies at the Arts United Center and came away persuaded that merely saying October 17 | FRIGHT NIGHT! Saturday, Nov. 14 • 8pm • $20-$40 star and screen actress “whatzup regrets the error” wouldn’t cover it. No, Ethel Waters. Jen Poiry- not at all. By molding a cast of 11 barely teen-aged Scooby-Doo Meets Batman ....3:30pm Prough’s story is on page and pre-teen boys into a believable cast of charac- Beetlejuice ..........................6:30pm ters in a difficult and dystopic story, Director John The Shining ............................11pm JOSHUA 4. O’Connell accomplished something quite extraordi- Finally, on page 5, Deb nary. These young actors – particularly leads Miles Oct. 18 | 7pm Warshauer (Ralph), Harley Babbitt (Piggy) and Ben DAVIS Kennedy checks in with Westropp (Jack) – performed their complex roles like a feature on The Mersey seasoned veterans of the stage. This is O’Connell’s ILL Friday, Nov. 20 • 8pm • $15-$30 Beatles who are returning second collaboration with Youtheatre, having di- B to Fort Wayne to play the rected Oliver! in 2013 and finishing second only to the Civic’s lavish production of Les Misérables in URR TINSLEY Embassy this month. our readers poll that year. Let’s hope this is just the B beginning of a long and productive relationship be- Thems the features, but as tween Youtheatre and the dean of IPFW’s Dept. of is always the case, there’s Visual and Performing Arts. ELLIS lots more to check out in the pages of northeast Indiana’s lone entertainment weekly. We invite you to peruse the calendars, the ads, the reviews and the columns and to find some- thing you’ll enjoy doing. Then, we encourage you to go do it, and all we ask of you is that you remember to tell ’em whatzup sent you. Oct. 23 | 7:30pm Saturday, Nov. 21 • 8pm • $25-$40 inside the issue THE MERSEY BEA T LES GREAT WHITE • features FLIX ................................................ 14 Sicario Nov. 4 | 7:30pm ACOUSTIC SHOW HAUNTED HOTEL: 13TH FLOOR .............2 SCREEN TIME ...............................14 Saturday, Nov. 28 • 8pm • $15-$30 A Terrible Night’s Sleep Martian Rules But Spies to Come FES T I V AL O F PRAISE MIKKI WHITE ...............................................4 ON BOOKS .....................................16 Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore SAVE THE DATE! SUCH A NIGHT Rising to the Challenge RECREATING THE MUSIC MERSEY BEATLES ....................................5 FARE WARNING ............................ 19 Ragtime ............................................Nov. 5 Four Lads from Liverpool The Coolest Way to Tour the City Great Russian Nutcracker ..............Nov. 8 OF THE LAST WALTZ Girls Night: The Musical................Nov. 13 Easton Corbin ...............................Nov. 14 Friday, Dec. 4 • 8pm • $15-$30 • calendars • columns & reviews Jackson Browne ...........................Nov. 17 Festival of Trees ............... Nov. 25-Dec. 3 JOHNNY A SPINS ...............................................6 LIVE MUSIC & COMEDY ...................7 The Piano Guys ............................... Dec. 3 GO TO OUR WEBSITE Public Image Ltd., Tamaryn, Phil Cook, Slayer MUSIC/ON THE ROAD ...................12 FOR TICKET INFO & MORE BACKTRACKS ..................................6 ROAD TRIPZ ..................................13 Donnie Iris, Back on the Streets (1980) Embassy Theatre ALL SHOWS ALL AGES ART & ARTIFACTS .........................17 OUT & ABOUT ...................................7 125 W.