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 h.h.holmes murder castle hotel devil in white city
h.h.holmes murder castle hotel devil in white city

Arrive early for some preshow entertainment!

The Bay View Lounge (attached to The Alchemist Theatre) will serve as the lobby to Holmes' "MURDER CASTLE" hotel!   Purchase your tickets online to ensure that you get a room!

When you arrive at the hotel lobby, check in at the desk to receive your room key, enjoy a tasty cocktail and relax while characters from the production mingle about.

Feeling lucky?  Try your skills at a few hands of poker and try to win chips worth drinks at the bar.  Play against the world-famous outlaw Marion Hedgepeth (The Handsome Bandit.)  Don't worry... we've hired crack Pinkerton Detectives to keep the game honest.

At showtime, take a small tour through a representation of the MURDER CASTLE cellar, designed as a sort of "mini museum" of Holmes' debauchery.

Note from Author/Producer Aaron Kopec:
I love fall productions.  I love fall. I love the smell of fall, the feel of fall and the strange, chilling excitement that goes along with fall and all that happens during it.

I have a fascination with two main aspects of theatre.  One is exploring the dark side of human nature and the other is creating productions that immerse the audience deep into the setting of the play.  Something that can only really be achieved at the "small level" in a venue such as The Alchemist.
I served as a lead actor and artistic designer for Jackie Benka's "RIPPER" in the fall of 2008, here at The Alchemist Theatre.  For that production we set the audience in a dark, White Chapel alley where building facades and dark corners lent a claustrophobic mood to the show.
In 2009, I re-worked the Dale Gutzmen penned script for "Dracula: The Undead" and took the helm as director.  For that production the main goal was definitely "Halloween fun."  Knowing and accepting that the vast majority of the audience was very familiar with the Dracula story, I attempted to dance around the main plot points and developed a secondary story about real-life gypsies who, through nightly re-enactments of the classic tale and human sacrifice, worship a real vampire.  In that production the audience served as "tourists" who came to witness this ceremony deep in the Transylvanian forest at the ruin site of Castle Dracula.

While beginning my research of Holmes, I realized that, like many others have been, I was mesmerized by not only what he was doing, but also what was going on in the world at that time.  I admit that going into this, my history was quite fuzzy.  It didn't occur to me that not only was Jack-The-Ripper making headlines over seas, but that electricity, phones, gasoline powered automobiles and steel-framed sky-scrapers were all being unleashed into the world.  Motion pictures were being developed, fashion began seeing colored dyes and the British Empire was still expanding.  Yet, through all this development and "modernization" of large cities, the American west was still being won.  Billy the Kid was slinging lead all over the place and Geronimo was fighting to keep Apache lands from the U.S. and Mexico.

While Holmes acted alone, I believe that those closest to him, at the very least, knew something was going on.   With all the progress and whirlwind excitement that was buzzing through Chicago, Holmes quickly learned to take advantage of both the fortunate and the desperate.  This play explores the question of how Holmes managed to get away with an unbelievable amount of evil and how he twisted those around him to continually turn a blind eye even as he began to lose all restraint.

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, you will be shocked by the shear magnitude of what this man was able to get away with.
For those of you who know the tale well, I must admit that there is really no way to cover even a fraction of the Doctor's "career" as a serial killer.
Amalgams of characters have been developed to portray the multitude of business associates, scam victims and even wives and lovers that fell prey to Holmes' wicked charm, not only in Chicago, but across much of the United States.

Combined characters and locations aside, this production is a historically accurate portrayal based on a story that is all-too-true.

Of course, being that it is still a "Halloween production," you can be certain that The Alchemist Theatre will once-again be pulling out all of the stops when it comes to "fun" and exciting sound and visual effects as well as mood and atmosphere design.

Thank you for taking an interest in this production and I hope you enjoy the colossal amount of work that everyone put into making "Murder Castle: The Chronicle of H.H.Holmes" another successful show!

-Aaron Kopec
owner/artistic director
The Alchemist Theatre