It’s October in Southern California, which means you can’t pass too many freeway offramps without coming across one that will lead you to one Halloween-themed scare spectacle or another.
But if there’s one thing that sets Dark Harbor apart (well, aside from its taking place in an alleged center of genuine paranormal activity), it may be how the 225-member cast comes together to create an alternate plane of existence.
“One trait we all have in common is that we see this separate reality,” says Danielle Kaufman, who will be part of Dark Harbor for a third straight year. “We’re able to bring guests within it [because] we believe it enough and interact with each other on that level. The most exciting thing about having other people come into that is you get to show it to them. You get to get right in their faces and throw that energy at them and watch how they react. And people are so taken away by this world.”
To be sure, the interactive nature of Dark Harbor gives its half-dozen mazes an edge that is unbalancing. Amidst the things that go bump in the night, the screams and startle effect, and the fantastic décor and gore is an element genuine human contact that leaves you unbalanced. It’s the people that make the difference.
“In a sense Dark Harbor becomes this huge, interactive play that you can walk through and physically be a part of,” says Kaufman.
Three years ago Dark Harbor supplanted Shipwreck, a Queen Mary Halloween offering that was, by all accounts, less inspired. Tony Lawson, a veteran of six years’ worth of Queen Mary Halloweens, postulates that the difference comes down to a more significant investment by the Dark Harbor producers. And that investment, Lawson says, shows up even more in the people than in the production value.
“[For Shipwreck] a lot of the people they hired just kinda wanted to do this for a paycheck,” Lawson says. “Whereas now [all of us] really care about what we’re doing here. […] With the group we have [now], we all care, we all want to be here, we all want to make this as good as we can possibly make it.”
Surprisingly, the Dark Harbor cast is not dominated by actors. The focus, rather, seems on people willing to (as many of them put it) “let your inner monster out.”
“I’m not an actor, and [in day-to-day life] I’m kind of kept-in,” says Lawson. “But when I come here I can just let out that other person—and I’m accepted. It’s another part of me that gets to come out. […] Dark Harbor brings everybody together [in a space where] we can be who we want to be, and not worry about being judged.”
“We have people who have professional jobs, and they do this because they love the family value of it. It’s welcoming,” says Cornelio Abella, a registered nurse in the quotidian world. “When you’re coming out of your everyday life and you’re feeling stressed out, this community helps you with coping, and they have your back.”
“It was like finding a part of me that I didn’t know I had in me,” says veteran Katherine Gonzalez. “And that has been helping me find myself, little by little. Every year I learn something new about myself. […] I always thought of myself as being different. And when I started [doing] this, I just automatically felt connected, [even though] I didn’t know anybody. But like Tony said, we can be ourselves, and we just fit in. I never felt like I fit in anywhere else. But coming here, I felt like, ‘Wow, these are the people I want to be around.'”
That camaraderie enables castmembers to create the cohesively immersive experience that makes Dark Harbor a world of its own.
“You spend so much time with everyone that you’re working with […] that you’re kind of acting off of [your] instincts and acting off of these characters that are not only these people that you love, but it’s also this entire monster community,” says Rena Miller, embarking on her third Dark Harbor. “And that’s how you see each other: as the monsters. So there’s no, like, line where this is your character and this is normal people; it’s more of like this family of monsters, and you’re all like one being, this one machine that outputs this fantastic energy and gives everyone a fantastic time.”
The Queen Mary’s Dark Harbor, which features six mazes, live entertainment, and 80-foot-high flames, takes place October 5-7, 12-14, 18-21, 25-28, and 31. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit http://www.queenmary.com/dark-harbor/.
—Second photo: Rena Miller. By Jonathan Lewis