The Call of the Ghost
There is a deep magic in ghost stories, a spell that brews in our wonderfully irrational passion for life. We transcend the expectations of our hearts and minds: we relish the fear, the terror, the surprise. Something is out there, and instead of turning away, we embrace our mortality: we dance in the graveyard, we dress up in shadows, and sometimes we laugh in the darkness.
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For hundreds of years writers have taken us by the hand and led us into old houses filled with apparitions: phantoms woven from memories and dreams and the dark core of our humanity. These tales are explorations of our souls, where characters cross the line between life and death, caught in situations that often draw out their deepest feelings. The supernatural teaches us what is natural: frailty, and strength, loss and recovery. The nurturing power of imagination.
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We began Whispering Bones in 2011 with a goal of bringing some of these stories to light and have performed at a number of venues throughout the region to large and receptive audiences. This year once again our talented performers have created a show that is fun, scary and thought provoking.
Join us! Kelvin Keraga, Producer
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Dr. Betterov-Underhill and Friends
The cast is currently gathering in the shadowy darkness.
Here are some of the ghostly spirits that will appear in this year's show:
Katherine Danforth-Hayes is a Hoosick Falls native and a graduate of SUNY Potsdam. She has appeared in Fort Salem Theater productions of Pride and Prejudice (Mr Bennet/Charlotte), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Lysander), Into the Woods (Cinderella’s Mother), and Godspell ("Learn Your Lessons Well" soloist). Other acting credits include Twelfth Night (Olivia), Othello (Cassio), Peter and the Starcatcher (Mrs Bumbrake), A Box of Monkeys (Mrs Ondego-Jones), All’s Well That Ends Well (Lafew), and Twelfth Night (Viola) at Hubbard Hall in Cambridge. She has directed many teen and youth productions, including James and the Giant Peach Jr., Spoon River Anthology, And Then There Were None, Cinderella, Bugsy Malone, The Wizard of Oz, Little Women, Into the Woods, Oliver!, Schoolhouse Rock Live!, The Play That Goes Wrong, and The Addams Family. Katherine lives in Hoosick Falls with her husband, dog, and three darling cats.
Gabriel Fabian is an actor who attended the University of Albany and earned his BA in Performance Art at Marymount Manhattan College. Since his graduation in 2023, he has been actively performing in the Capital Region. He recently performed multiple roles in the Black Theater Company of Upstate New York’s Festival of One Acts. Gabriel is thrilled to be making his debut performance in "Whispering Bones," marking an exciting new chapter in his artistic journey.
Kelvin Keraga, a.k.a. Dr. Erastus Betterov Underhill is an actor, storyteller and writer living in Greenwich, New York. He is the creator of Whispering Bones and has produced and performed in it for the last twelve years. Favorite acting roles include Bruce in Marie and Bruce, Basil in The Diviners, and the Fool in King Lear. He helped save Erica’s baby on All My Children (who unfortunately grew up to be a rather difficult son.) His story, “A Light Snow Falling” was a finalist in the Tiferet Journal Fiction Writing Contest, and he has performed for the National Storytelling Network.
Tony Malikowski is a voice actor, singer, juggler, writer and storyteller. Since retiring as a high school STEM teacher, he has enjoyed performing for audiences that are not required to attend under threat of in-school detention. A veteran of community theater musicals, talent shows, plays and cabarets, his favorite roles include Skye Masterson (Guys and Dolls), Joseph (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) and Jake Laurents/George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life: The Radio Play. Most recently he has performed in staged readings of The Back Porch Gang and Rhinestone Cowboy as a part of Bennington Theater’s New Works Series. He lives in Williamstown, MA with his future improv partner and wife, Rachel.
Mary Murphy is a writer and storyteller. She has performed at the National Storytelling Festival and other state and regional festivals. Mary's stories have been published in anthologies and magazines. She coaches children and adult storytellers and has recently edited "I Remember: Stories from an Easton Library Memoir Project". Visit her online at murphywong.net
David Skeele moved to the Saratoga area last year, having spent the previous thirty years teaching acting and playwriting at Slippery Rock University in Western Pennsylvania. David is a prolific director, with over fifty productions at SRU under his belt. Locally, he performed in Homemade Theatre’s The Humans (Erik) and Hubbard Hall’s Twelfth Night (Feste) and he has just been cast in Homemade Theatre’s production of Hamlet (Claudius). Other favorite roles include Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon, John in Marjorie Prime and Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet. He is also a playwright, having created a string of supernatural thrillers that were presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland (and in countries as far-flung as Switzerland and Nigeria), as well as an immersive concert/theatre piece entitled Medea In Methland. David holds an MFA in Directing and a Ph.D. in Theatre History and Performance Studies, and is the author of the book Thwarting the Wayward Seas, a history of Shakespeare’s Pericles and the editor of Pericles: Critical Essays. In addition to theatre, David’s passions include hiking, snowshoeing, writing crime fiction and scouring the internet for exciting new rock bands.
Mary and Kelvin are members of Story CIrcle of the Capital District.