Spooked - Romeo & Juliet

Episode Date: October 26, 2021

A pair of star-crossed lovers encounter the paranormal in fair Wisconsin, where we lay our scene. Thank you, Kelsey Brennan & Andy Truschinski, for sharing your story with Spooked! Produced by Zöe Ferrigno, original score by Nicholas Marks Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

If all the world were capulettes, no Romeo's, just Juliette, with every heart cleave in tooth, for want of just one Montague. It is almost time. You're listening to Spooked. Seventeen years old, young. Just starting a life built up my own decisions and I knew two things simultaneously. I knew I loved her. desperately, deeply, and I knew

I was moving away. To the other side of the world, to Japan, the chance of lifetime. I had to take it. I had to. And mostly, in the days leading up to getting on that plane, she and I, we didn't talk about it. Even if she helped me pack up my brand new suitcase, looked for Japanese-English dictionaries.

We avoided mentioning what we were. packing floor, the herd of elephants in the room, but I wanted her to know, I wanted to give her something to make her understand that even though I had to do this, that she was special to me. I snuck off. To a jeweler, he helped me pick out the most beautiful bracelet I could afford, and he framed it in a beautiful box. I knew she would love it. And she would appreciate it. And she would appreciate that this is just a bump that this year would go quickly, that we have our entire lives ahead of us, so excited to give it to her. It could say everything that we had not.

On the night, walking next to her along the footpath, I pulled out the jewelry box and handed it to her the look of joy, elation. Then she opened that box to see a bracelet, and I know instantly that she did not. expect to see a bracelet, the disappointment, the almost sorrow, the almost anger, the chasm, and the acceptance, almost. As she placed the bracelet on her wrist, thanked me. And we continued walking down the path to lives completely different than they had been just a few moments before. Had added injury. He had twisted the knife.

And some things, some things you can never take back. Spook starts. Have you ever gone to see Shakespeare in the park? I'm not talking about much to do about nothing in the middle of the day. No, no, no, no, no. This is spooked. I'm talking about Hamlet in the middle of the woods at midnight. You feel like you're in the play.

that those ghosts, those dark forces summoned in the actor's lines are coming alive right there in front of your eyes. And today we're traveling to the American Players Theater, an outdoor amphitheater

in rural Wisconsin. It stages some of America's best Shakespeare productions in the theater is in the middle of the woods and it gets pretty dark. We're about to meet Kelsey and Andy, two apprentices at the theater,

who have just been cast in the roles of their young lives. Romeo and Juliet. Then take it from here. We start rehearsing the play, and the balcony scene has started to give us problems. The balcony scene is the time they really get to meet and get to know each other. Romeo and his friends crashed this party of Capulet.

And from across the room, Romeo spots Juliet, and instantly they fall in love. Romeo sticks around the property of the Capulets, hoping to get another glimpse of Juliet or maybe work up the courage to say something to her. And as he's waiting, looking around in this really, really, you know, dangerous area for him to be, he would be murdered if he was found. She appears on her balcony. It's night. These two people can't see each other's face. and there's no one else around except this constant threat

that at any moment they could be found out. But in the rehearsals, it's bright. We're rehearsing at noon, you know, sometimes under the sun where it's oiling because it's the middle of the summer. All those factors were playing into it. So we're getting notes from our director, Matt, about how the balcony scene is just not working.

The stakes are not high enough. You know, feel the danger. The risks are higher. Death is around the corner. So we're getting it down to the wire and we decide one night that we're going to go up the hill in the dark and rehearse on the stage that's in the middle of the woods. Do I want to walk up the hill in the pitch darkness and rehearse? Probably not. That's not something that is on brand for me.

But I want to be the best Juliet. can possibly be. So I'm going to do anything. There's a walking ramp that's gravel stone that winds up and through the woods. There's no light because it's an off night from the theater. It's trees everywhere to the point where you can't really see too far. I mean, you're looking straight into the wilderness. We start getting deeper into the woods and deeper up the hill and I'm like, I can't see anything. Oh my God, what did we decide to do here? I'm definitely starting to feel how alone we are up on this hill.

And as you come through a lot of fir trees and that kind of thing, it opens up again, and you start to see the walls of the theater at the very top. And it's this massive amphitheater that's cut into this natural bowl at the top of this large hill. So we walk into the lobby area completely deserted. And we walk down basically the center aisle that leads from the lobby area onto the stage. We get up there and there's not much to do, but just jump in. So I go backstage up this staircase that leads to a window. So I'm probably now like maybe 15, 20 feet.

off the stage and Andy is below. I can see just the outline of his face and nothing more. And that's exactly what Juliette experiences. It's just a strange sensation to be like, okay, now we're rehearsing and we can barely see each other. We're completely alone. It's a little creepy. And if we get caught by somebody up there, we're not really sure we're

supposed to be up here, so it's perfect. Maybe this is what we've needed all along. We start the scene. But soft. What light through yonder window breaks. It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon. And it's...

Awesome. So exhilarating. Her maid art far more fair than she. Oh. Areth thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Thou wilt not be but sworn my love and I'll no longer be a Capulet. And we do it again because we're actors and we want to rehearse, right?

And during the second rehearsal of the balcony scene, I start to feel like we're being watched. I'm noticing Kelsey's got this halting, nature now to her voice that she doesn't usually have. And that also would a maiden, else would a maiden blush paint my cheek for that which thou has heard me speak tonight. And that also she's just a little bit, things are coming out a little slower.

I started feeling this weird thing and like where your arm hair start raising up like that prickly sensation on my skin on my arms. I was like, am I getting cold? There's kind of a center aisle that leads from the stage all the way up through the audience and into the lobby. I look up and at the very top of that path, I saw that someone was there. It's pitch black, so it's just kind of an outline of something that, looks like a human being.

I'm required to turn around when I profess my love to Juliet. With love's light wings that I o'er perch these walls, for stony limits cannot hold love out. And what love can do that dares... I open up to this aisle to see what I think is someone out there. Initially, the first thing I sense, of course, is, oh, whoa, someone is there. But then it just has like this sense of...

of, okay, it's someone here to watch that we probably know. And they walk down into the fifth row, and they sit down about two seats in. The seats are a beige leather and a gray leather. They are visible, even, you know, even in the darkness. So when that person is sitting in that seat, there is a blackness of an outline that covers, back of the seat. I immediately thought it was Matt, my director. He was the only person who knew that we were out there, and he had every reason to come and watch us. We concluded the balcony scene. Good night. Good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say good night till it be

morrow. Sleep dwell upon thine eyes. Peace in thy breast. Instinctively, I'm waiting for notes because that's the normal exchange. You end a scene and your director says, great. Okay, here's what I think. And there was just silence. Well, that's weird. Okay, maybe Matt just wants to give us space and doesn't want to insert any notes, doesn't want to, you know, ruin this moment. So I come down off the balcony. I walk down. It's still silent. And I join Andy on the stage. And that's when Andy says, Kelsey, what about, what, do you want to do the pilgrim scene maybe?

I thought I was just having this weird experience alone. But I also want to keep doing this. It's been fun too. And it's like, also, I'm intrigued by what is actually happening. Will this person reveal themselves? Andy's one of my best friends. He's my roommate. If Andy doesn't feel like we're in danger, I'm probably fine.

So I say, sure, let's do the pilgrim scene. At the pilgrim scene, it is the moment where Romeo comes up to Juliet at the Capulets party, and he takes her hand. For saints have hands that pilgrim's hands do touch, and palm to palm is Holy Palmer's kiss. That's the dance, right, where they first get. to meet. And it's the first little spark that ignites this big love that everyone knows this Romeo and Juliet. Have not saints' lips and Holy Palmers too?

I, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. Oh, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do. And this scene is played probably as close to the audience as you can get, but the person does not get clearer the closer I get. The person remains a black fuzzy blob. I don't start to see a face. I don't start to see the color of a shirt. But I do notice that the seat is down. It's not my eyes tricking me. There is a person sitting in that seat. So we finish the scene. There's this moment of silence. No one says anything. We're giving them the opportunity to say hello.

They're very close to us. They're not that far away. It's awkward that they don't say anything. It feels a little dangerous. When nothing happens and it's pure silence and something's still there, the only option at that point is to go. And I said, let's go. Let's get out of here.

The closest exit. off the stage is to continue straight up the aisle that goes through the audience into the lobby and down the hill into the parking lot. But what it means is we have to go past this figure. And, you know, we're walking with purpose, but I couldn't help myself. I turn my head to the right and I get a good look at this person, this figure. And even from that, close, really three or four feet away, it's still just black and fuzzy. There's no features. It's a black mass that had enough weight that the seat was down.

I think the most frightening thing is the proximity I had to this person did not inspire them to address me. It didn't move. It didn't turn towards me. And that felt very odd. My heart's racing. It's the fight or flight. It's the adrenaline. It's the urgency to get away.

So when we reach the landing that is the lobby, at this point, I have to check in with Andy. And so I turn to him and I say, did you see? And I jump in immediately and say, the thing coming down aisle five in the theater. And we just start running. We're kind of like, you know, giggling and kind of whispering and like, what is going on? What was that?

As we get to the bottom of the hill, we climb into one of our cars and we start talking about it to try to get some sort of rationale to the situation. We say, okay, hold on. Let's think about this realistically. who could that have been? Is it so-and-so? Is it Matt? Is it maybe Tracy who is also directing? So we call Matt?

He doesn't pick up the phone. We leave a voicemail. Hey man, were you just in the theater? Were you up there? Was that you? Were you playing a trick on us? We call Tracy. She doesn't pick up.

We leave a message. Nobody called me back that night. So I still thought maybe it was Matt. You know, just being weird and maybe he thought we couldn't see him. You know, I really was just trying to rationalize the event. As I'm lying in bed, all I'm thinking is I have no explanation of what I've experienced tonight. I don't believe it's someone I've known out there.

If it was someone I've known, they would have said something. It just never felt like this was a normal, situation. So the next day I had a scheduled check-in with Brenda DeVita, my boss, just in her office. I said, okay, so this thing happened to me in Andy last night. Is there a groundskeeper? Is there anyone who would have been up there around 10 o'clock when all the lights are off? And she kind of looked at me and she said, no, nope, if there's no show, there's nobody up the hill. And I said, okay, well, let me tell you this whole story. story of what happened. She starts to get emotional. And she goes, okay, stay right there.

Stay right there. And she runs out of her office and she grabs Ken Albers. Ken Albers is a director with a huge history of experience in the theater. He knew those actors. He knew the history. And she said, Ken Albers, let me. Listen to this. Kelsey, tell it again. I told the story again. She looks at Ken. She goes, what do you think? And he goes, it was Stephen. You met Stephen last night. Stephen Hemming was a much, much loved actor at APT. There's a memorial built for Stephen at the theater, like a little garden plot, essentially, that is in memory of Stephen Hemming.

He played the friar. people remember him in that role. In Romeo and Juliet, there's a character, Frye Lawrence, who essentially is there to bridge the gap between these two families. And he sees and tests the love of Romeo toward Juliet, even telling him straight up, basically, that this is passion, this is lust, this is not love. And Romeo proves to him.

So the friar is the person that clandestinely goes and helps these two form their love so far as to marry them in secret. When we told everyone our experience, everyone immediately replied with, we felt Stephen in the space. One of the things that Ken said in this meeting was, I think Stephen just was there to watch the kids fall in love one more time. The friar is this beautiful, supportive force in the same. And that's what he was for us that night.

The person that joins their hands in matrimony in the show comes in and helps us figure this stuff out. So on the actual performance day, it was a 2 p.m. matinee, not for a full house. And then as we start performing, it becomes the hottest day on record. Andy and I were both terribly ill. We both had terrible, terrible colds. We're both probably have fevers or something. I have to say that I think the experience of rehearsing the play in the dark with a ghost felt closer to the actual story that Shakespeare wrote than our performance. We shared a secret.

We had a thrilling experience together. We experienced something that, no one else will understand. And that's what Romeo and Juliet have. They have a connection that only they really know about. Thank you. Thank you, Kelsey Brennan, and Andy Treschensky. And thank you to Stephen, the eternal fire Lawrence

for coming back from beyond the grave to make sure the production went smoothly. We see you. The original score was by Nicholas Marks. It was produced by Zoe Frickno. Now Spooks to us. We walk this path together, Spook Season 6, and if you yourself possess an inexplicable power, which no one will believe,

tell me all about it. Let us know your story. Spooked at Snapjudgment.org because there is nothing better than a spook story from a spook listener. Spooked at Snapjudgment.org and let the dark side know that you spook with some spook gear, the t-shirt of your dreams available right now at Snapjudgment.org. And remember, if you like your storytelling under the bright light of day, get the amazing, stupendious Snap Judgment podcast, it might just change your life because it's storytelling with a beat.

Spook was created by the team that picnics and cemeteries, except of course, for Mark Ristage because of the incident. There's Anna Sussman, Eliza Smith, Chris Hamburg, Annie New End, Lauren Newsom, Leon Morimoto, Davy Kim, Renzo Goreo, Teo DeKotte, Marissa, Doris, Zoy Fugnell, Tiffing Delisa, Jacob, Winick, Anne Ford, and Doug Stewart.

The spook theme songs by Pat Macedia Miller. My name is from Washington, and I understand that even the people closest to you, people you love most in the world, there are things you hold secret, unrevealed, even from them. That is as it should be, but never withhold hard-worn information

that can save everything you hold. Dear, let them know that you know to never, ever, never, ever, never, ever, never, ever, ever, never, never, the lights.