UCLA alumni to perform in cemetery to celebrate classic horror literary works for “˜Wicked Lit’

A typical play rehearsal takes place indoors on a stage with decent lighting, but UCLA alumni Michael Perl and John Cogan have spent the last couple weeks running through graveyards, getting tangled in spiderwebs and slinking through underground vaults, all under the cloak of night.

The graveyards, spiderwebs and mausoleums are real too, and not just the product of imaginative set designing.

This Halloween season, Perl and Cogan will star in a “Wicked Lit,” a theater event that stages adaptations of classic literary works of horror or suspense at the Mountain View Cemetery. During these nighttime shows, audiences follow actors throughout the cemetery grounds, climbing stairs and venturing into a mausoleum and an old chapel. Theatergoers are asked to bring a flashlight, but to leave the children and high heels at home.

“”˜Wicked Lit’ is kind of a Halloween for adults, but it makes you feel like a kid,” said Jeff Rack, one of the show’s directors, playwrights and producers. “We want to have the audience not watch the literature but walk them through it.”

There are two productions, each with three short plays performed back-to-back. This year, Production A is Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Unnamable” and Charles Dickens’ “The Chimes.” Production B is Mark Twain’s “A Ghost Story,” M.R. James’ “Casting the Runes” and Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Body Snatcher.”

This will be the second year performing for “Wicked Lit” for Cogan and Perl, longtime friends who met just more than 10 years ago as undergraduate theater students.

Cogan will play Joel in “The Unnamable,” a tale about two men who deal black-market artifacts and encounter a strange presence in a cemetery one night. In “Casting the Runes,” Perl will play a 19th century book critic who is cursed after panning a novel on witchcraft and believes he has less than a week to live.

According to Cogan, his role has required physical training, including long-distance runs and sprints, to prepare him for running from invisible beasts. He said that the physicality of the acting allows the emotional dimension to seep in. In contrast, Perl said his preparation has been more mental.

“It’s about getting the dialect correct, understanding the time period and allowing for total unmitigated terror,” Perl said. “In the world of Mr. James’ tale, it’s not just losing your life but losing your soul.”

Cogan said “Wicked Lit” is often described as an “immersive” theater experience, absorbing the audience into the story’s physical locale and suspenseful mood.

“It still has the conventions of a play. … What sets this aside is you’re not sitting in a room with actors changing the scene in front of you. You follow them from scene to scene, and the story grabs you in every sense,” Cogan said.

Perl said that while places like Knott’s Scary Farm are popular during Halloween season, they offer visitors a disjointed experience with “haunted houses” that have little in common other than the immediate scare factor.

“You’re getting theatrical experience of top quality, but you’re getting it in this alternative venue with stories that are really timeless,” Perl said. “You get a different experience than Knott’s. … I think this goes a little deeper because we’re giving you characters to care about.”

Until then, Cogan and Perl have a few more rehearsals left. The actors said they’ve adapted to the unusual performing environment ““ but not without a learning curve. In the hall where rehearsals for “Casting the Runes” take place, a vampire bat ““ dubbed by Perl as “the mascot” ““ has taken up residence.

“Every time we go up there to rehearse, the mascot is there,” Perl said. “He does dive bombs every time.”

Perl added that, in spite of limited rehearsal time, the crew has learned to accept the presence of this pesky but memorable animal.

“I don’t know if he will be there during the show,” Perl said. “But part of me wishes (he) will.”