The Haunting of Hill House- Meet cast member Shannon Labadie!

What do you find appealing about your character and this show?

I think this show and the novel it is based on is a really great example of the “ideal” scary story. A  lot of movies and tv shows now tend to lean too heavily on CGI and special effects to make things scary, but true horror is psychological and in the unseen (or the imagined). This play does a wonderful job of balancing that true psychological terror with real emotion and characters you come to sympathize with and care about. My character, Eleanor, is a very complicated person (to say the least). She comes to Hill House trying to escape her old life and become more independent, which is what drew me to the character initially. 

What have you learned about yourself in playing the role of “Eleanor Vance”?

I feel like every time we run the show or I revisit my lines, I find some new layer to Eleanor and why she acts the way she does. She makes a lot of seemingly drastic decisions in the play (and in her life before the play begins) but I have come to find that each decision she makes comes from a different fear she has been harboring for a long time. Finding the different emotions that drove each of these decisions has been a really interesting acting challenge. Eleanor is also visibly afraid for much of this play so to really pinpoint how to portray this fear physically I have tried to remember all the times in my life when I have been truly afraid. This has helped me find the emotion that drove those fears and also to physically recreate how I acted in the moment. 

What do you want the audience to experience/take away from this show?

I hope that the audience really comes to sympathize with the experiences of the characters. Every character in this show has a really compelling reason to be in Hill House and the house effects every person in a different way. I hope the audience can also spot all the details we have layered into this show, and recognize how every aspect is connected (the costumes, sets, props, sound effects, etc. all connect to paint a truly cohesive…and disturbing picture). The audience should come ready to laugh, cry, scream, and jump out of their seats. 

How does this show differ from other shows you have worked on?

I’ve never really worked on a scary show before, and this show has a lot of technical elements that really help the audience feel immersed in the horror the characters feel. It has been a lot of hard work to get things like timing down for the scary moments, but it has really been worth it. 

How long have you been acting and what made you get involved in theatre? How did you get involved with LTA?

I have only acted a few times previous to this play, a lot of my theater experience has been in directing middle and high schoolers the past few years. I just moved to Alexandria a few months ago and found out about LTA by chance when looking through things to do in Old Town (and I sure am glad that I did!). 

What advice would you give others who are interested in working in theatre?

Just get out and do it! If you don’t know where to start, start by volunteering on weekends or a couple days a month in an area that sounds interesting to you (set painting, costumes, sound design, etc). Reach out to this theater or any of the others in the area and just ask how you can get involved, theaters love help! If you are interested in acting then- audition, audition, audition! The worst that can happen is that you don’t get the part, but at least you will have the experience to help propel you into your next audition.