Memoriam Development’s ‘Nightshade: Vernal’ brings 10 chilling tales to Elgin

The seventh installment of Memoriam Development’s horror anthology, ‘Nightshade,’ is returning to Side Street Studio Arts in Elgin with 10 short plays that fit the theme of ‘Vernal.”

The plays selected by a panel of playwrights and actors, are the 10 best short horror pieces chosen from submissions worldwide.

The show is directed by Nick Mataragas, with assistance from Rebecca Rivers, and will star the talented cast of Emma Archbold, Jamie Berry, Jacob Borre, Ken Craig, Amanda Davila, Samantha Hoyt, and Carissa Lehning.

This year’s collection of plays lean into the season while still doing exactly what the best horror does, speak to the human condition.

“The theme of vernal has led to a selection of pieces that harken to something more elemental, and maternal than your average horror play. Many of the plays feel primordial,” Mataragas said.

The 10 pieces selected for “Nightshade: Vernal” are:

• “Artificial Intimacy” by Melissa Harrison. A grieving widow brings her deceased husband back to life via an AI robot. But as her relationship with the robot progresses in disturbing ways, she has to reckon with whether she ever truly knew her husband.

• “Brood Song” by Brad White. Each spring night, a family times dinner to a sound they dare not hear. When the cicadas begin, they perform a wordless ritual — earmuffs, towels, tape, a water glass trembling on the table — because the chorus outside wants in. One slip at the table cracks the seal, and the house learns the quiet between screams is the most dangerous noise of all.

• “Dark Druids and Their Dark Jars” by Jonathan Josephson. Keyroris Embersense, Quidove Willowwish, Iarrieth Dewspark, and Nerihan Birchwright, gather on the night of the vernal equinox to release captured souls and summon the great power from beyond the beyond. And if everyone can remember their lines and present their jars in a dramatic-enough way, everything will go to plan. But that’s a big if.

• “Flower Moon” by Rebecca Kane. Ella awaits her monthly transformation into a werewolf at a facility designed to hold in people like her for safety. An attendant, Danny, senses that she needs a little more reassurance than four secure walls for security.

• “Fear the Violinist” by Annie Schoonover. Kate wakes up in a hospital room, with wires and tubes attached to her body. A nurse informs her that on the other side of the wall is a dying man whose circulatory system is attached to Kate’s. As long as Kate stays attached to him for nine months, he will live. Kate, who did not consent to this procedure, is desperate to escape, but must match wits with the nurse in order to do so.

• “Greenhouse” by Colin Commager. A home healthcare worker is assigned to care for an older woman with a deadly hobby.

• “Growing Pains” by Leland Culver. A cancer patient accepts a new lease on life in the form of a miracle cure. When the side effects begin to manifest themselves, they call the company representative who enrolled them in the treatment program, looking for a way out.

• “Rootsong” by Robert Csoma. Rootsong is a ritualistic play where earth itself seems to breathe beneath the floorboards. At its center is Ivy, a brittle woman haunted by what she has buried and the roots that refuse to stay hidden. Blending horror, myth, and eco-gothic ritual, Rootsong is a meditation on cycles of decay and return, where what is buried does not rest, but grows.

• “This is Our Spring” by Dana Hall. In a dying rural town where spring has stalled and the earth lies barren, hunger clings to every corner. Lynn makes a forbidden offering to wake the soil. Her brother Randy, caught between faith and fear, confronts her as the line between salvation and sacrifice blurs. This is their spring, but every harvest has its price.

• “The Witches Chair” by Abbey Goscinski. Set deep in a fog-drenched forest clearing, The Witch’s Chair is a lyrical and unsettling folk horror tale about loss, legacy, and the price of remembrance. Sage returns to the woods where her mother mysteriously disappeared nine years ago, carrying only her grief, a faded journal, and a desperate need for answers. But she and her best friend Taylor summon Rowena, the veiled witch who has waited centuries for the right offering.

Audiences have five opportunities to catch “Nightshade”: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, April 17-18 and 24-25; and 2 p.m. Sunday, April 19, in Side Street Studios’ Backspace, 15½ Ziegler Court in downtown Elgin.

Tickets for Nightshade are pay what you can (we recommend $25) and are available at: sidestreetstudioarts.org/tickets.

“Nightshade: Vernal” is funded in part thanks to a grant from the Elgin Cultural Arts Commission.

About The Nightshade Series:

“Nightshade” is Memoriam Development’s signature horror anthology. The original “Nightshade” took place in July of 2018 at the Madison Street Theater in Oak Park. Since the inception, playwrights from all over the world have been able to submit their short plays for consideration.

To be considered, a short play must fit the Nightshade theme, be 5-10 pages, written within the last five years, and have not been previously produced.

About Memoriam Development:

Founded in 2016 and based in the Chicago suburbs, Memoriam Development is a collective of creatives developing original works for stage, screen, and pod guided by the ideal that excellent theater can happen anywhere, anytime, and by any means.