The season for spooky and eerie stories told in the dark begins this weekend at the Licking County Players Playhouse with the 59th season’s first show, Mircalla, at the players’ theater at 131 W. Main Street in downtown Newark.

The show narrates the strange occurrences when Laura Stult, a lonely teenager living with her father, receives a mysterious visitor, Camilla, who is invited to live with them in Upper Styria.
Returning director Edie L. Norlin leads the cast of eight, including 2020 Denison University graduate Emma Borgis as Camilla, and a longtime member of the Licking County Players troupe, Katherine Stuart, as Laura, in this energetic horror comedy.
Stage manager Denise Harper describes the production as a “campy play that’s a lot of fun,” and Norlin praises the passion and work that has gone into this production, saying, “This is a great production that everyone has done a great job to provide for the community.”
Opening night is at 7:30 p.m. this Friday, Oct. 11, and the play runs through the weekend at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 12, and at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 13.
The play also will be performed October 17-20. For more information and to purchase tickets, go to the Licking County Players’ website.
The next production in the 2024-2025 season is A Christmas Carol: A Live Radio Play, in December. It is from the novella by Charles Dickens adapted for the stage by Joe Landry. Other upcoming shows are Monk Ferris’ comedy, Bonechiller; William Links’ adaptation of Tim Kelly’s Murder by Natural Causes; and Disaster!, a comedy by Seth Rudetsky and Jack Plotnick set in the 1970s.
Tickets for those productions will be available online, as well as an audition form open to any member of the Licking County community interested in joining the Licking County Players to get involved in local theater.
Anastasia Wood writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.