Arcadia University Theater Arts announces full casting and production details for The Pit created by Arcadia University students and alumni. Conceived and directed by Damien Figueras and Alisa Sickora Kleckner, The Pit will play in Parking Lot 12, the Pit parking lot, October 15-17, 2021.  

Arcadia University has its haunted places.  Places where mirrors reflect futures and phantom footsteps race the hallways.  Those are the tales told on ghost tours and campus overnights.  But what of the hidden stories that lie dormant under our very feet?  This fall join us for an experience like none other as we uncover one of the area’s most suppressed tragedies. Part podcast, part immersive theatre, audiences will engage in the legend of The Pit as both sleuth and voyeur.  Choose to attend by car or on the neighboring hillside for this world premiere, site specific event.  Listen to the narrated testimonials, puzzle through the artifacts and experience the unsettling revelation that too far can always go further.

“This year and a half, quite frankly, rattled me.  It rattled a lot of people,” says co-director, co-creator Alisa Sickora Kleckner.  “Daily conversations bemoaned shattered norms, every week a new ‘unprecedented’, every news cycle a fractured truth.  But amid all that emotional turmoil, what haunted me most was the shifting threshold for going ‘too far’.  Far, further, further still.  No end in sight.  Running tandem to my rattling, and as means of much needed escapism, I took a deep dive into contemporary folklore, specifically urban legends and the performative qualities of those tales.  ‘Performative qualities, you say?’ There it is, the little voice bringing clarity and purpose.  In a matter of minutes, The Pit was conceptualized.  Devised to be an immersive experience that is reflective of the societal anxieties that leave us rattled, this new urban legend toys with our notion of ‘the theatre’ during a pandemic.  It mucks about the sullied truths that drive campus lore (all lore for that matter) and it aims to lay bare the consequences of going too far.  It is theatre, truth and consequence created by a cadre of students, alumni and industry professionals for a time in need of a cautionary reboot.”

Staged in the Pit parking lot #12, co-creators, directors and designers Figueras and Kleckner are joined by choreographer Jenn Rose and an assemble of 11 student actors.  

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION 
The Pit
Co-directed, designed and conceived by Damien Figueras and Alisa Sickora Kleckner
Written and Narrated by Arcadia students, alumni and industry professionals
Oct. 15, at 7 p.m. 
Oct. 16, at 7 p.m.
Oct. 17, at 7 p.m. 

When a children’s game goes too far, a legacy of paranoia and tragedy takes root.

ABOUT THE CAST AND CONTRIBUTORS

Writers

Story Tellers

Singers

Whisperers (ensemble)

TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets can be purchased in advance. Car tickets (premium experience) are offered at $20/car and Hillside seating is offered “Pay What You Want” for all performances.