Egyptian Theatre transforms each October

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ost historical landmarks don’t host haunted houses every year. But DeKalb’s Egyptian Theatre does, and it is no small feat transforming this historical theater into a fully functional haunted house every October.

Most haunted houses are either permanent or have months to build and prepare, said Alex Nerad, director of the Egyptian Theatre and co-chairman of the Amenti Haunted House Committee. Here in DeKalb, he said, they basically have two weeks to do everything.

Work began Oct. 10, and the main thing is getting the false walls and panels up, Nerad said. The finished product will feature more than 20 different scenes on six different levels of the theater. And even people who know the theater well would be surprised by what they find, Nerad said.

“When you’re going through, you really don’t see the theater,” said Joe Andersen, the other co-chairman for the committee. “We’re basically constructing a building within a building.”

And all this constructing requires quite a bit of help from volunteers. Nerad said 200 volunteers may lend their time and work throughout the haunted house’s run, and that volunteers logged 1,500 hours last year. And without financial compensation for their work, it’s clear there must be an element of fun involved.

“The nights that we’re open are the reward,” Andersen said. “It’s always fun to scare people.”

But even while the focus is on those who come to be scared and not those doing the scaring, the volunteers do find ways to keep things interesting. Jobs and scare roles can change throughout the haunted house’s run, Nerad said. And the layout of the different rooms and scenes also allows scarers to come at people from different positions and in different ways.

“You can come back multiple times and have a different experience each time,” Nerad said. “We like to keep it fresh.”

Many who enjoy the haunted house end up coming back the next year seeking to volunteer, Nerad said. One such volunteer, Kody Williams of Sycamore, has been to the haunted house to be scared three times but is volunteering for his first time this year. Why?

“The thrill of scaring people” is what made Williams want to do it, he said. “I’m just amazed at what it turns out to be.”

“We rarely have people who get involved who don’t enjoy it,” Nerad said.

And just as they have only a few weeks to set everything up, there isn’t a lot of time to break it down once the run is done, Nerad said.

“Stuff always goes down faster than it goes up,” he said, but cleanup still begins immediately after Halloween. More than 25 different community groups use the theater throughout the year, Nerad said, adding that the theater must be cleaned up and ready in the first couple weeks of November some years.

As for the scare level at the Amenti Haunted House, Nerad suggests 13 years of age be the guide for parents, but there are no set age restrictions for admittance.

“It is a very intense haunted house,” he said.

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If you go

What: Amenti Haunted House at the Egyptian Theatre

Where: Egyptian Theatre, 135 N. Second St., DeKalb

When: 7-11 p.m. Oct. 22-25 and Oct. 28-31

For more information, visit www.amenti.info.