One-woman gothic thriller "Blackhollow" makes world premiere at Greater Boston Stage Company

Looking for some chills and thrills in the theater? A world premiere one-act play at The Greater Boston Stage Company in Stoneham hopes to scare you in your seats.

Blackhollow is a one-woman gothic thriller, set in an insane asylum in the 1830s.

"Who doesn't love a revenge slasher at this time of year?" asked actor Anna Slate, who portrays Lucy Cull and every other character in this brand new piece.

Playwright and Greater Boston Stage's artistic director Weylin Symes was inspired by a classic.

"I re-read Jekyll and Hyde last year and thought, I want to do an adaptation of this. It feels great. It's got all the medical mystery in it and the gothic element," he told WBZ-TV. "The more I kept writing, it turned into its own completely different thing."

"I like being creepy and campy. And I get do both of those things," Slate said. 

"This could easily be a 12-person play. Anna plays eight fully realized characters plus a few other small ones throughout," Symes explained.

Working right at his side? Co-director Daniel Begin.

"Weylin really focused on the script and the changes that were being made in the script. And what I was able to focus on was working with Anna on stage, like where she's going, her characterization," Begin explained. "Figuring out the mannerisms for Anna of how she switches between characters has been really challenging, but also really rewarding when we see it come to life on stage."

"Combining action with a very literary script has been really fascinating. So I'm kind of narrating things as I'm doing them," Slate told WBZ.

The question is - is that narrator a reliable one?

Symes said that's up to the audience and hopes they'll think, "'Wait a second, can I trust that what this person's saying is true? Or is it part of her imagination?' And that's, I think, some of the fun of horror, that kind of not knowing what's real."

You can check out Blackhollow at the Greater Boston Stage Company in Stoneham through Sunday, Nov. 8