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You can look at the return of the Haunted Soiree “macabre Halloween cocktail party” to Capitol Hill as the return of a soul-stealing zombie business that haunts the neighborhood sucking dollars from unsuspecting tourists and filling them with watered down cocktails.

Afterall, Capitol Hill does Hilloween just fine on its own. Bars and restaurants up and down Broadway and across Pike and Pine look forward to the weekends around the holiday for almost Pride-levels of business.

It is also true that the concept is part of a nationwide production company’s ventures that swoops onto Capitol Hill once a year to cash in on Hilloween enthusiasm.

But you’ll be missing most of the fun. And some of the cocktails are actually good.

“I’m a teaching artist and I heard about Haunted Soiree through some friends,” cast member Hannah Votel said. “I love the tiny moments to scare the partygoers, luring them in with a false sense of insecurity. You can tell they like to be messed with.”

Votel, a teaching artist from the Cornish College of the Arts, is just one of many locals building a theater career in Seattle with a brief stop at the DAR Rainier Chapter House on E Roy where the Haunted Soiree is held.

Two hours before a Sunday opening, the house — reportedly haunted by an actual trickster spirit — is filled with the busy group of theater makers moving to get the old mansion typically used to host weddings and anniversary parties ready for the evening show.

The DAR Rainier Chapter House’s haunted history seems to keep pace with the soiree’s macabre atmosphere. Downstairs the rooms are dark, the piano can be heard from above, a haunting melody setting the scene as cast members trail in and out, most in stage make-up, no costume, rehearsing their lines.

Votel is only one of the many cast members who say audience interaction is the highlight of the job.

Dorothy Rosenthal Pierce, another cast member on set, speaks in a Russian accent for the show under haunted stage makeup.

“I think the best part is watching people suspend their belief,” Rosenthal Pierce said. “People freak out and you get to listen to them trying to compare stories, figuring out the tale.”

The cast arrives on location before a show about two hours prior. The make-up artists work to paint each cast member into their respective creature or spirit, all non-stop movement even after the show begins.

The costume manager, Birdi Nagy, shows up as Haunted Soiree first rolls into town as the crew finishes everything including new costumes and building the set in the week before opening.

“On a run day, I’m usually the first one here and the last to leave,” Nagy said.

Before opening, costumes are stored in the rooms their character performs in, intricately designed pieces that are prepared and fixed each night by the costume designers.

Co-owner and operations and analytics director of Meyer2Meyer Entertainment, Melissa Meyer says that the production process begins in February, when the wardrobe team begins sewing and constructing costumes, moving into local markets for the design process in July.

Haunted Soiree holds shows in seven different cities, Seattle is one of its newest additions.

The company hires local talent, staff, actors, and bartenders — all local talent Haunted Soiree hired to help put on the show.

“We try to build our shows and price our tickets out to a place that we’re able to pay every single person,” Meyer said.  “There’s not a single volunteer and or intern in any of our shows.”

There is a serious food and drink component to the work. The drink menu is based on tastings that the Meyers hold at their home near the beginning of every season’s yearly cycle.

“We generally like to try and create some form of variety, because you know not every drink is going to be everybody’s favorite,” Meyer said. “We’re using freshly squeezed watermelon, there isn’t even a gin and tonic at this event. If people break things down and do the math of how much craft cocktails cost, it’s pretty high-end stuff that’s happening there.”

Each year Haunted Soiree features a new season of their show, this season tells the tale of the Volkov possession.

“This season is based on Slavic folktales,” Meyer, said. “It is loosely inspired by the final days of Grigori Rasputin and based on stories around the Baba Yaga, the myling, and other Slavic folktales throughout the centuries.”

Haunted Soiree is in its second year on Capitol Hill, with plans to return for a third, but the reception of the haunted house turned cocktail party has not all been positive.

The attraction is a two-hour show, the ticket price varying for different types, with four to five curated mini cocktails included in the cost. Reviews waver on whether the experience is worth the price paid to enter the historical haunted site.

“I don’t think that people have quite an understanding of the costs that go behind the scenes to pay employees fairly,” Meyer said. “We are just trying to create art for art’s sake and create something that people will like to do, people just don’t understand the expenses of producing a show.”

Meyers knows her business is an outsider to the neighborhood but she has Pacific Northwest roots herself. The show came to Capitol Hill after years of her pushing for its addition to the haunted houses the city runs in October. She chose the DAR Rainier chapter house based on her memories of the house and its history from her drives down Broadway.

“It was really beautiful being in my hometown,” Meyer said. “I gotta do it with my family and my friends who don’t get to see most of the stuff that we do, watching all the local talent take a story that we’ve seen done before and make it their own.”

Haunted Soiree runs through Halloween and is located at 800 E Roy. They will return next year for a third season focused on Celtic folklore and, hopefully, more local theater talent. Learn more at hauntedsoiree.com/seattle.

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Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

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