Warwick Valley Community Center cooks up haunted house for Halloween fun

The Warwick Valley Community Center will be hosting a haunted house this Halloween season.

“For Halloween local teens are invited to take part in the Community Center’s Haunted House. This year our theme is a good old creepy folk tale, Hansel and Gretel in the Haunted Forest,” said Melissa Shaw-Smith, director of Wickham Works.

The show takes place October 20, 21, and 28, from 6 to 9 p.m. Tickets are $10 and will be sold at the door (cash only), with all proceeds benefiting the center’s youth programs.

The community center’s annual haunted house, started in 2017. This will be the first haunted house held since the pandemic. The creepy Hansel and Gretel theme will tell the tale of two kids abandoned in the woods by their wicked stepmother, left to the mercy of wild and terrifying beasts. Organizers noted that there will be many scary encounters along the path for the audience to experience. Middle and high school students and members of Acting Out Players will perform in the show, while local artists and teenagers build the sets and props.

Drop-in workshops for teens and adults are held at the center at 11 Hamilton Avenue, Warwick, on Monday afternoons from 4 to 6 p.m. “All teenagers in the area are welcome to join the Haunted House and our art community workshops,” added Shaw-Smith.

The community center uses a variety of programs to engage with youth in their Alcohol and Drug Prevention programs. One of these programs is an ongoing collaboration with the community arts non-profit Wickham Works. Each year, this collaboration draws in teenagers ages 12 through 18 to put on the Doc Fry Music Sessions, a monthly live band, and help with the pop-up art gallery, building puppets for town festivals, making art for the Day of Acceptance annual Warwick Pride event, creating public art exhibits in the summer for a community service project, and more.

The Wickham Works Facebook page has information on the Haunted House and upcoming workshops and events. Contact mshawsmith@wickhamworks.org or the Warwick Community Center at 845-986-6422 for more information.