"OK, guys, let's run that scene again." The director's grating voiced echoed through the empty theater. The five actors onstage groaned and went back to their starting positions.
It was a week from opening night at the Fall River Theater in a large American town much like the one you probably live in. The Fall River Theater had never prided itself on being expensive (how else were they going to make money?), so their shows usually didn't sell well. They used pieces of sharpened PVC pipe as swords, used ketchup for blood, and hired any actor or actress that would work cheap, regardless of their talent level. They had put on many a show over the years but this one was special.
It was called "Dance With The Sojourn". Written in 1966 by a struggling young playwright before he made it big, it was a horror comedy about four travelers that get their car broken down outside of a castle (just a few Styrofoam walls spray painted gray, in this production). They go inside and discover the mansion is run by the mystical half demon/half man called the Sojourn. The Sojourn is a playful (if that's the right word for it) nemesis who, instead, of killing his prey, mostly taunts them with transforming their body or mind. Animals, inanimate objects, gender, age, just one body part or the whole shebang, it was all up in the air.
The Sojourn can change his shape at will, so no one knows what he actually looks like. He could be disguising himself as anything from your best friend to your cat to your favorite chair in the living room.
The play stars two men and two women: Brad (played by Malcolm in this production), Jordan (played by Ross), Jenny (played by Stacy), and Sally (played by Teresa). The Sojourn is being played by Will, a tall, very muscular fellow. And a budding director named Carly is directing this production.
The play has a few frightening moments, but is mostly remembered for it's scenes of comedy. Like the Sojourn giving Jordan a horse head that he can't see (a callback to A Midsummer Night's Dream). With a play this good, you'd expect it to be put on quite often. But you would be wrong. You see, on opening night of the very first show, December 24th, 1967, the owner of the theater refused to let a woman enter the theater, as she wanted to take her unusually large black cat with her in. After being refused several times, she pointed a finger at the stage through the window and set a curse upon the show.
What the writer got wrong about the Sojourn is that it is a peaceful creature until you piss it off. Then, it transforms you into a horrifying mutation, probably permanently. But, as long as you stayed on it's good side, it would pull mostly harmless transformations. At the most, you're be a horse or a whale or a dog or a cat for about two minutes.
Of course, the play went on as normal, and nothing went wrong. But what the many people who put on this show didn't know was that the witch put a delayed curse on the show, it would not actually take effect until fifty years later. So it's Christmas Eve, 2017, and there are five people in the theater: Carly, the director, and the five actors and actresses: Malcolm, Ross, Will, Stacy, and Teresa.
Due to the long-dead witch's curse, the Sojourn is about to become very real indeed.