The Skull of Elizabeth Bathory

Between rehearsal and performance, there isn’t much to tell- the director, Irvin Mason Jr, and the cast (Sarin Monae West as The Skull, Shirine Babb as Rebecca, Leovina Charles as Elizabeth, and Tina Benko as Katherine) had a fifty five minute rehearsal with the script. From our first minute, I could tell how much they cared and how much fun they were having. Everyone’s focus was electric, everyone’s talent was undeniable. When Irvin asked me if I had any thoughts I wanted to share with the cast, all I said was that this play was a “horror delight,” that they should rejoice in the bloody, eerie imagery but keep it sincerely creepy at the same time. They already knew what I was talking about. Big smiles and nods all around

To hear more about the play and the other pieces at the Short New Play Festival, click here! —>

The skull of Hungarian countess and alleged serial killer Elizabeth Bathory is now the vessel to her evil spirit. In a prologue to the audience, the skull tells us that she killed 650 girls when she was alive and now she whispers to a servant who gathers victims for her, promising the servant the secret to eternal beauty in exchange. Once 650 more girls have died, Elizabeth will be resurrected to live and reign again. Her servant is a Restoration era actress who flatters young girls from the theater and then lures them to be sacrificed for the ritual. They've already killed 649. The final girl will knock on the door any minute.

Red Bull Theater presented this verse horror piece as part of their Short New Play Festival on June 24th, 2024.

A night of eight readings, this festival had two acts, two directors, eight actors, and a rehearsal period of exactly fifty five minutes for each piece. Rehearsals took place in the same spot that the performances would: The Loreto theatre inside the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture.

The first thing I learned when I got there for rehearsals was that there would, in fact, be a prop skull used in the reading. Fantastic news. You never know if props will get used in a staged reading, so the fact that the skull would indeed be a present, physical object that watched the characters and watched the audience was a delightful surprise. The bad news was that no one could find the skull they had been planning on using. It was nowhere to be found, even though it had been seen around the office the day before. Next thing I knew, Jessica, our stage manager, was showing me pictures of her skull collection and asking me what she should run home and grab. Jessica’s skulls were amazing, but each one had a domino mask or a similar decoration on them that was permanently attached, so a classic skull made out of resin was procured from a nearby Halloween store called, “Abracadabra.”