This Saturday, Oct. 19, the drama department is presenting their new event, Boo Bash! Featuring a haunted hallway, carnival games, and spooky decorations it’s an event you won’t want to miss.

Boo Bash is being organized by the International Thespian Society (ITS). The event will take place on Saturday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. primarily in the school cafeteria. Tickets will cost $3 for students and $5 for children. Proceeds from the event are going to support the spring production of Little Shop of Horrors. Additionally, several clubs have been invited to run their own booths to fundraise for their own clubs as well.

Where does Boo Bash come from?

Boo Bash has been a passion project of this year’s ITS student board, especially President Chris Brookes (Class of 2025) and Vice-President Jennifer Baxter (Class of 2025). This event is the newest in a series of fall events that ITS has been hosting during Fall.

Last year, ITS hosted a Halloween event called, “You Scared Bro?”. It was an event with small performances from drama, band and orchestra. Brookes got his inspiration for Boo Bash from this event saying, “I helped put on the UHS drama run portion of it. And looking back at the event, I didn’t like it. I didn’t think it worked very well, and I thought we could have done something cooler.”

Brookes envisioned ITS running a haunted house. He took this idea to the drama director, who, according to Brookes, loved the idea. The director compared it to an event the school put on before the pandemic, called “Hawk Harvest”. 

This years event will be partially inspired by Hawk Harvest, with Brookes saying, “[Hawk Harvest] sounded like it was a fantastic idea before COVID happened. So, why not bring it back?”

What was Hawk Harvest?

Hawk Harvest, originally called Hawk Fest, was a school-wide event that ran from 2015 to 2019. Originally, it was not a drama event, instead it was organized by the Student Government Association (SGA) and UHS Mini-THON. The two main teachers behind the event were Mr. Stephen Ward and Mr. Mathew Ferrante.

The UHS chapter of Mini-THON was started by alum Jacob Mittereder in 2015. THON is an event that was started in the 1973 at Penn State University to help raise funds for the Four Diamond Organization, an organization dedicated to raising funds for pediatric cancer research. Mini-THONs are a way for high schools to help raise money for the same organization. 

Mini-THON used to be a large part of our school spirit before the pandemic, with Ward explaining that, “When Mini-THON was in existence from 2015 to 2020, it was a year-long campaign. They would hold 5k runs, color runs, they helped put on Homecoming and they did No Shave November, where kids campaigned and the kids who raised the lowest had their head shaved.”

Hawk Harvest specifically was the Mini-THON run event for the fall. It was held in the cafeteria and had many different student organizations and honors societies who participated. The drama department used to participate in Hawk Harvest, which is where the idea for Boo Bash came from. According to Ward, “At Hawk Harvest, the drama department did this haunted hallway event. Some of my students went to Hawk Harvest and Hawk Fest as a child, and they remembered those events and wanted to bring something like that back.”

Mini-THON and Hawk Harvest were discontinued due to a lack of student leaders after the pandemic according to Ward.

How has the Hawk Harvest Legacy impacted Boo Bash?

Boo Bash is an event that looks to rekindle school spirit. It seeks to connect disparate groups at UHS similar to how Mini-THON did before the pandemic. However, there has been some difficulty, according to Ward, the school spirit at UHS is not the same as it was before the pandemic.

In recent years, school spirit has largely fallen on the shoulders of teachers. This can make it difficult for students to plan school events, as Ward explains, “It requires teachers, who put in an exorbitant amount of hours during the week, to be here on a Saturday.” As such, there has been a lot of effort from the ITS Board to get as many groups and teachers interested in participating as possible.

Over the past few weeks, ITS Spirit and Recruitment Officer Ademide Akinsola (Class of 2027) and his committee have been handing out sign-up forms to many different UHS clubs. So far seven clubs have signed up to run booths at Boo Bash: Cards for Cancer, National Honor Society (NHS), National Science Honors Society (NSHS), Henna Club, Food for Thought, French Club, and the Psychology Club. More student organizations are continuing to be asked to sign up.

This lack of participation is not something that has deterred Brookes, as this is something he planned for. With him explaining that, “I think there’s maybe a bit of hesitancy because this is a new event. This is the first time any club has attempted something like this since before COVID.”

Brookes sees hope for the future of Boo Bash saying that, “It’s my hope that through, what I hope will be the success of this, that people can look forward to [Boo Bash] next year and think, ‘oh, maybe this would be a good thing for my club to do.’” 

What Can Students Expect from Boo Bash?

There is a lot to look forward to for Boo Bash, with Vice-President Baxter explaining that “[Boo Bash] has a lot of variety, whether you want to play games or eat food or talk to people or go through a hallway and get involved in something that’s more theatrical. I think that it’ll be a really fun time. ”

Students will enter Boo Bash at the gym entrance to the cafeteria. In the cafeteria there will be concessions provided by parent volunteers. Then, similar to Winter Wonderland, there will be a lot of booths with games and activities for kids and students to participate in.

Some of the booths that people can look forward to are; candy pong, pumpkin ring toss, musical chairs, pumpkin bowling, slime making, and henna tattooing. This is just to same a few of the over 20 booths that are being planned for the event. With some of the booths being operated and planned by the drama department and others being planned by other student organizations.

Additionally, one of the aspects ITS is most excited for is the haunted trail. The small haunted trail will be set up in the hallway behind the auditorium. Drama students are volunteering to work as guides and actors in the hallway Students will guide those who dare to enter through a tour of several terrifying rooms. Each telling the story of a school that has fallen into a state of despair. 

One aspect of this whole event that the board wants to promote is how family friendly it will be. Guides for the hallway will be able to adjust the hallway depending on the person entering, making it scary for teenage audiences and more family friendly for younger children. As Baxter describes it, it’s as if, “[We’ll have] a hallway or a path for younger kids and one for older kids…It’s very family friendly.”

ITS has a lot of hope and ambition behind the success of this event. With President Brookes explaining that, “I’d love to see it become a bigger and bigger thing every year, something that people can look forward to and kind of become a part of the Urbana community in the same way something that like Winter Wonderland has become.”

Be sure to come to the event on Saturday, Oct. 19, and support the drama department!