Wallkill View Farm harvest fun
The Wallkill View Farm on Route 299 in New Paltz offers Pumpkin Mountain, Spooky Tunnel and weekend hayrides along with a corn maze and pick-your-own pumpkins and a corn-kernel sandbox for little ones. Open seven days 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Call 255-8050.
Halloween in Highland hamlet
The Town of Lloyd Events Committee will put on its fifth annual Halloween nighttime block party in the hamlet this Saturday, October 29 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Previous events have seen the drum and bugle corps leading the costume parade for little ones through streets closed to traffic. A fire pit offers toasted marshmallows, and most of the town seems to turn out for convivial camaraderie, with parents appearing to enjoy themselves as much as the wee ones.
Local businesses hand out candy and Stage to Screen Acting Studio usually puts on a haunted house. More information can be found at townoflloyd.com.
Addams Family Musical
Ninety Miles Off Broadway will be presenting The Addams Family Musical at the Highland High School auditorium on Pancake Hollow Road.
The image that comes to mind for many people when thinking of “The Addams Family” is the cast of the 1960s television show. They were so good in their roles – John Astin as Gomez and Carolyn Jones as Morticia seemed to have the best relationship of any husband and wife on TV at that time – and Jackie Coogan as Uncle Fester and Ted Cassidy as Lurch were pretty memorable, too.
But the characters were actually created in a series of New Yorker magazine cartoons by Charles Addams. The humor was a wee bit darker than in the subsequent television show – a cartoon from 1946 shows the Addams family on the roof of their spooky manse preparing to pour a cauldron of boiling oil on a group of Christmas carolers. Fellow New Yorker cartoonist Bob Mankoff wrote that Addams “tapped into that vein of American gothic that has a touch of paranoia about it, seeing behind every comforting façade the uncomfortable truth about the duality of human nature. But where gothic literature usually combined these themes with romance, Addams made the horror hilarious: disturbing, but at the same time friendly, identifiable and acceptable.”
The same might be said of the new musical version of The Addams Family created in 2010, which the 90 Miles Off Broadway theater company will mount on the stage of the auditorium at Highland High School this October. Virginia Weinman Leitner stars as Morticia and Paul Crisafi as Gomez in this production. Shows are Friday and Saturday, October 28 and 29 at 7 p.m. and a final matinee on Sunday, October 30 at 2 p.m. Tickets cost $18 for adults, $15 for students and seniors and $12 per ticket for groups of ten or more.
Tickets may be purchased at the door, online through Brown Paper Tickets or by calling 256-9657.
The 90 Miles Off Broadway has provided community theater for more than 52 years. The nonprofit produces a show each spring and fall and offers an annual winter cabaret and children’s theatre workshop. For information, visit them at 90milesoffbroadway.com.
New Paltz youth haunted house
The teens from the New Paltz Youth Center at 220 Main Street. will create their annual haunted house on Saturday, October 29 and Monday, October 31 from 7 to 10 p.m. The cost is $5. Not suitable for kids under age ten. Proceeds benefit the youth program. Call 255-5140.
New Paltz Halloween parade
The venerable New Paltz tradition will once again hit the streets at 6 p.m. on Halloween night, Monday, October 31. The pageantry kicks off at Main Street and Manheim Boulevard in New Paltz and ends at the firehouse on Plattekill Avenue, where the Lion’s Club distributes apples and candy.
Huguenot Street trick-or-treat
The historic houses open their doors to trick-or-treaters on Monday, October 31 from 4 to 6 p.m. A portion of Huguenot Street will be closed to vehicular traffic. Visitors can expect to meet residents who span the street’s centuries-long history, including colonial-era women, Revolutionary-War soldiers, a Victorian-era socialite and her housemaid, flappers from the Roaring Twenties and other costumed interpreters. Refreshments will be available at DuBois Fort Visitor Center at 81 Huguenot Street. There will be a campfire, and the entire street will be decorated for an immersive Halloween experience.
Night of a hundred pumpkins
Another longstanding local Halloween tradition (the 26th annual, this year) is held at The Bakery, 13a North Front Street. in New Paltz on Halloween night, Monday, October 31 from 6 to 10 p.m. The day prior, people bring in creatively carved pumpkins that are placed all around the outdoor café and lit up on Halloween night. Local artists will judge the pumpkins this year for those most “petrifying, pretty, peculiar, painted and panoramic” in addition to classic jacks.
Prizes donated by local businesses will be awarded. The entries of adults and children are judged separately. Enjoy free hot cider, cocoa and pumpkin bread. More information is available by calling 255-8840 or visit ilovethebakery.com.
