The Call of the Ghost
There is a deep magic in ghost stories, a spell that brews in our wonderfully irrational passion for life. We transcend the expectations of our hearts and minds: we relish the fear, the terror, the surprise. Something is out there, and instead of turning away, we embrace our mortality: we dance in the graveyard, we dress up in shadows, and sometimes we laugh in the darkness.
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For hundreds of years writers have taken us by the hand and led us into old houses filled with apparitions: phantoms woven from memories and dreams and the dark core of our humanity. These tales are explorations of our souls, where characters cross the line between life and death, caught in situations that often draw out their deepest feelings. The supernatural teaches us what is natural: frailty, and strength, loss and recovery. The nurturing power of imagination.
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We began Whispering Bones in 2011 with a goal of bringing some of these stories to light and have performed at a number of venues throughout the region to large and receptive audiences. This year once again our talented performers have created a show that is fun, scary and thought provoking.
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This show has spooky, funny, and sometimes disturbing stories, but no gore. Suitable for middle-schoolers or older.
Join us! Kelvin Keraga, Producer
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Dr. Betterov-Underhill and Friends
Here are some of the ghostly spirits that will appear in our 2025 show:
Siri Allison (The Ghost and the Bonesetter) has a double theater life – acting in plays and participating in the local storytelling scene. She is a member of the Story Circle of the Capital District and had been a frequent performer in Whispering Bones. She recently performed in The Stone Angel (Charlie) at Hubbard Hall. At Fort Salem Theater, she has appeared in The Savannah Disputation (Margaret), Grease (Miss Lynch), Footloose (Betty Blast), and Agnes of God (Mother Miriam Ruth). She has been nominated twice for Best Performer in a Play for Broadway World Central New York.
Lâle Davidson’s (The Haunting of Zelda)​ storytelling programs blend personal tales with folktales drawing from her Irish/Scottish/Scandinavian/German heritage. A founding member of the collaborative storytelling trio, the Snickering Witches, she now performs solo all over the Capital Region including at Proctors, Hubbard Hall, The Silver Bay Association, The Kleinert Art Center, the Irish Museum. Currently, she co-hosts the Caffe Lena Storytelling Open Mic with Jeannine Laverty.
A professor of fiction writing and public speaking at SUNY ADK for 33 years, she won the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Creative Activities and the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has published four books with Red Penguin Books: a collection of short stories, Strange Appetites, which won the Adirondack Center for Writing’s People’s Choice Award, and three novels, Blue Woman Burning (the audiobook due out this December), Against the Grain, winner of two National Indie Excellence Awards, and Beyond Sight, a ghost story based in Saratoga Springs.
Website: laledavidson.com
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/laledavidsonauthor/
Kelvin Keraga, a.k.a. Dr. Erastus Betterov Underhill
(The Ghost in the Corridor, Application of Electrical Current) is an actor, storyteller and writer living in Greenwich, New York. He is the creator of Whispering Bones and has produced and performed in it for the last fourteen years. Favorite acting roles include Bruce in Marie and Bruce, Basil in The Diviners, and the Fool in King Lear. He helped save Erica’s baby on All My Children (who unfortunately grew up to be a rather difficult son.) His play “The Stone Angel” was performed at Hubbard Hall this past summer. His story, “A Light Snow Falling” was a finalist in the Tiferet Journal Fiction Writing Contest, and he has performed for the National Storytelling Network. He is currently compiling a collection of his ghost stories.
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Patrick Kincaid has been involved in the theater for most of his life, starting at age 2. This is Patrick’s second show in southern Vermont. You might have seen him in South Pacific at the MAC theater, and The Marvelous Wonderettes at Bennington Theater. Some of Patrick’s other works include performances in : Much Ado About Nothing, Bedroom Farce, Moon Over Buffalo, King of Kings, Arsenic and Old Lace, and For Unto Y’all, as well as directing The Widow’s Best Friend, all on the west coast. He has taught high school theater for a number of years and directed various productions there as well. Patrick is now part owner of The King’s Knit-Wit, a local knitting store/cafe here in Bennington, and he is very happy to be a part of such a talented and wonderful cast and crew.
David Skeele (Mother's Room) moved to the Saratoga area last year, having spent the previous thirty years teaching acting and playwriting at Slippery Rock University in Western Pennsylvania. David is a prolific director, with over fifty productions at SRU under his belt. Locally, he performed in Homemade Theatre’s The Humans (Erik) and Hubbard Hall’s Twelfth Night (Feste) and he has just been cast in Homemade Theatre’s production of Hamlet (Claudius). Other favorite roles include Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon, John in Marjorie Prime and Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet. He is also a playwright, having created a string of supernatural thrillers that were presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland (and in countries as far-flung as Switzerland and Nigeria), as well as an immersive concert/theatre piece entitled Medea In Methland. David holds an MFA in Directing and a Ph.D. in Theatre History and Performance Studies, and is the author of the book Thwarting the Wayward Seas, a history of Shakespeare’s Pericles and the editor of Pericles: Critical Essays. In addition to theatre, David’s passions include hiking, snowshoeing, writing crime fiction and scouring the internet for exciting new rock bands.
Special Guest Appearances:
Battenkill Bollywood and the Deerfield Valley Dancing Witches (Revenant, performed at Hubbard Hall and Bennington Theater): based in Washington County, New York, performs classic & original choreography inspired by a love for Bollywood films. During pumpkin-spice season, we often stir up trouble with the Deerfield Valley Witches, who dance Schüttel Deinen Speck in the style of the Wolfshäger Hexenbrut, and other witchy dances for Halloween in Wilmington and around the region. Our new dance, Revenant, explores a zombie-apocalypse world somewhere between Bollywood and MTV. Choreography by Gina Mammone Deibel, Michael Peters & Ines Markeljevic, with special thanks to Linda Morris.
Battenkill Bollywood: gina.dance678@gmail.com
Deerfield Valley Dancing Witches: tessamcauliffe@hotmail.com
Barbara Chepaitis ("The Juniper Tree", The Eighth Step, Sand Lake Center for the Arts) is author of 12 published novels and 2 books of nonfiction, including SAVING EAGLE MITCH: One Good Deed in a Wicked World. She sometimes collaborates with her dogs to write books of Pomes and Songs for Hoomins. She's past director of the storytelling trio The Snickering Witches, and a regular co-host on Vox Pop, The Writer's Forum.
