Born into a royal family in the English town of Bradford in the late 1800s, Phillis always had a strong desire to act, something her family never agreed with. She escaped to America to become a famous actress after her father killed her one true love, who was convicted of treason.
After sneaking onto a trading ship, Phillis found herself in New Orleans, where the great Voodoo Witch Marie Laveau promised her fame in return for her life. Vulnerable and with no one else to turn to, Phillis agreed.
Laveau put Phillis to work as a bellhop in the lobby of her home, manning the eerie elevators, also known as the “hellevators,” for the past 156 years.
The feisty bellhop gets quite bored during the year with no visitors, so she loves when the humans come for the month of October. Although thousands of visitors come through each year, this is not the kind of fame Phillis had dreamed of.
Communication Studies senior Blakeley Vicknair has played Phillis at The 13th Gate for two years now. During Halloween season, Vicknair is one of the many University students to transform into a creature of the night and haunt The Gate.
“We’re all very normal, silly people with big dreams, and in the blink of an eye we are gory and ready to scare the life out of people,” Vicknair said.
Midnight Productions opened the 40,000-square-foot indoor and outdoor haunt, The 13th Gate, in downtown Baton Rouge in 2002. Since then, national outlets such as the Travel Channel and MTV have spotlighted it as one of the top haunted attractions in the world.
With more than 250 actors and crew members employed, Stage Manager Jamie Schexnayder estimates University students make up about 35 percent of The 13th Gate’s cast. These dedicated workers take it upon themselves to create detailed background stories for the characters they portray.
“With acting, the best way to be believable to the outside world is when you submerge yourself into the life of your character, becoming that character,” Vicknair said. “Not to mention I play Phillis three days a week for an average of six to seven hours a night. It’s almost impossible not to get stuck.”
The actors and actresses are truly committed to the roles they play night after night. But like all dedicated employees, separating work and play can be challenging.
University alumna Kelsey White said leaving their personas at work is something all actors and actresses at The Gate struggle with, especially if accents are involved. From cockney to Romanian, when speaking in an accent for a long time, she said, it is difficult to go back to normal.
White has played her character Alena in Necropolis 13, The 13th Gate’s add-on, for the past three years. She describes Alena as a flirtatious vampire that loves to seduce her prey, never apologizing for invading patrons’ personal spaces.
“Last year a lot of my Gate friends and I would have a sleepover after the show at a friend’s house,” White said. “I woke them up one morning by serving them donuts as Alena. It was ridiculous and a lot of fun.”
This character overflow can sometimes be confusing for ordinary people in the outside world, especially around the week of Halloween, when the haunt is open daily — a time referred to by the workers as “hell week.”
French senior Stephanie Cronan, who plays the Ghost Bride in Necropolis 13, also works at an aftercare and said she gets strange looks from the Pre-K students who don’t understand why her hair is white the week of Halloween.
“I look rough during hell week,” Cronan said. “This year it’s 10 days straight so I’ve just accepted the fact that I’m going to look rough. People think I have lice or white things in my hair, they think it’s dandruff, but it’s actually airbrush.”
Cronan has played the Ghost Bride for three years, and said her hair takes about 20 minutes, even though doing it has become all about how big it can be and how many spiders are in it. Vicknair’s hair and makeup process, on the other hand, takes a little over an hour, she said, because she works in the first area visitors see, meaning her look must be perfect because it can make or break patrons’ first impressions.
These nightly transformations can be so extreme that it becomes hard for the actors and actresses to recognize their coworkers in the daytime. Cronan has met fellow University students at The Gate but said she has walked right passed them on campus because of their ordinary appearance.
“It’s funny because you’ll see them, and you won’t recognize them immediately because we’re not in makeup,” Cronan said. “People don’t recognize me because my hair’s flat and I don’t recognize people without zombie makeup.”
But students beware — some haunters still like messing with the outside world. Vicknair said she occasionally wears her whiteout contacts to school during the month of October.
Although scaring passersby is their job, some actors and actresses of The Gate are still too frightened to go through the haunted house as a guest. Vicknair said she got so frightened before her audition last year that she almost didn’t go.
“The irony in all of this is I refused to go to The 13th Gate because I was so terrified,” Vicknair said. “When I decided to audition, I made my roommate tag along with me because I was too scared to walk in.”
After spending countless hours together in makeup and costume perfecting their characters and scare tactics, The 13th Gate becomes more than a ghostly gathering of actors, actresses and Halloween fanatics. From teachers to accountants to University students, the workers of The Gate have become more than friends, Vicknair said.
“I think a lot of people would be surprised if they walked into our cast room and could see what goes on back there,” Vicknair said. “It’s a beautiful thing to have such a diverse group of people come together and share such a unique experience.”
The haunters see each other as family, and White even calls The 13th Gate home. This bond formed easily, Brown said, because the workers love what they do.
“We’re all one big happy, scary family,” Brown said. “It’s a creepy family, but it’s a family.”
The 13th Gate and Necropolis 13 will be open from 6:30 p.m. –to 11:30 p.m. until Nov.2.
Happy Haunting.
