Squirmy special effects told a story of grief and growing up in The Broke Thespians Theatre Company’s slasher comedy “Hookman.”
The play followed Lexi, a college freshman who lost her best friend in a car accident. Soon after, she is plagued by a hook-handed killer. Taking from the world of slasher movies, the story is about “growing up in the face of grief” according to Director Miranda E. Martinez.
“I feel like everybody experiences grief in different ways,” Martinez said. “Even just moving on to a college campus, you have to experience grief from your own previous high school life, and you have to become a whole new person. And you lose family and friends just because you’re growing up.”
Written by Lauren Yee and produced by The Broke Thespians Theatre Company for its 2025 season, the troupe performed “Hookman” on March 28-30 and April 4-6 at the Maurice T. Suttles VFW Post 3413 at 1701 Hunter Road.
The production had many special effects. The cast and ensemble used blood packs for smaller bursts and concealed blood rigs for continuous spurts with strategic gory intent. The actors first practiced by popping water packs, but used two types of fake blood during the performance
“We have a standard stage blood, and then we have a food-safe, face, mouth and good-to-eat blood,” Martinez said. “We have a few moments [during the play] where chorus members pop the blood packs with their mouths, so we have a cocoa powder corn syrup blood mixture.
Hailey Heitmeyer, theatre education junior, played the character Yoonji. She said it took a few tries for the special effects crew to get the blood mixture right for rehearsals and the performance.
“We had to figure out the right consistency not only for the blood to look realistic but also so that our eyelids didn’t get glued,” Heitmeyer said. “Once [the first mixture] got on my face and it dried just a little bit, my eyelids got stuck open, and I could barely blink.”
James Vasquez, communication studies freshman and a chorus member, claimed the most difficult aspect of the fake blood came after the play.
“I didn’t know it was so hard to get fake blood out of this dang floor,” Vasquez said. “On the first night we had blood, we didn’t know how to clean it. We had one Swiffer, and everyone was getting on their hands and knees with Swiffer pads at first. But now we have 3 mops, so that’s something we have improved at.”
The play’s chorus, an ensemble of background actors, was another special effect. They formed the background of scenes themselves. Martinez said their roles ranged from the beeps, bumps and every crash of a car to a table and windows.
“It was a day I couldn’t go to rehearsal, and so I came back one rehearsal late,” Vasquez said. “They just told me, ‘Hey, guess what? You’re a table.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, OK.’ It was something I just got thrown into. And that’s part of the gig, you just had to take some of this stuff.
According to Martinez, the effects, set and choreography convey the experience of the main character.
“This show is really heavy about grief and how that distills in Lexi’s reality,” Martinez said. “I wanted to be able to be able to destroy and construct the world at will to show what’s happening in her brain.”
For more information on Broke Thespians, visit https://www.brokethespianstheatrecompany.org/home.
