In the past, a ghost story at The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis has meant Christmas was drawing near. But this season, the company is fully embracing Halloween with a staging of West End smash The Woman in Black, based on the Susan Hill story of the same name. 

The production, which runs from October 8-26 at The Rep, has scared and delighted audiences around the globe for three decades. St. Louis theatergoers can expect a gripping, atmospheric night at the theater as The Woman in Black follows Arthur Kipps’ experience at Eel Marsh House and the dark secrets that won’t stay shrouded in its fogs. 

Helmed by director Robin Herford and tour director Antony Eden, The Woman in Black tells its chilling ghost story with just three actors sharing two roles, as Kipps engages a young actor to help exorcise his demons through theater. 

“It’s a comedy, it’s a horror, it’s a whodunit in a way. It’s a drama. It’s got comic duologues and technical moments and soliloquies,” Eden says. “It’s got a lot to it. So there’s something for everyone in it, and that’s a reason I think it’s done so well.”

David Acton, who plays Arthur Kipps, boasts a long resume of roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company and TV shows such as Call the Midwife. James Byng, a veteran of the West End production of The Woman in Black appears as The Actor. Ben Porter performs as both Kipps and The Actor and is the first actor in the 28 year history of this production to play both roles in repertory. It’s an intimate production in which the audience plays a key role—Kipps is, after all, putting on a show to tell his story. 

“[The show] plays to theater’s strengths, and theater is about people being in the room together,” Eden says. “What we don’t have that you get in the films is a huge haunted house that you wander through. We don’t have that. But what the play does successfully is that it engages the audience’s imagination really cleverly through old-school theatrical trickery.” 

“Analog” is how Eden describes the various tricks that will turn the Loretto-Hilton into a haunted house. There are no projections or filmed sequences here. It comes down to pulled strings, lights, fog, and the power of an audience’s own mind to create apprehension and fear.

“For each member of the audience, suddenly you’re looking at your own haunted house,” Eden says. “Everybody makes their own version of what scares them, so each audience member creates their own world. It’s a clever conceit of the writing that it is set in the theater it’s in, so it’s happening all around you, not just on stage. The whole auditorium is the set.”

The immersive experience is meant to scare, but this story isn’t all bumps in the night. In fact, Eden says, it’s the horror that lingers that is more effective than perhaps what gets the biggest scream.

“Jump scares are great. They’re instantaneous, and they’re kind of hedonistic. They go in the moment,” he says. “But I think the best scares are the ones that a few days later you think of and shudder.”

There’s more to The Woman in Black than its ghosts though. It grapples with grief, has moments of levity, and is, in the end, a very human supernatural tale. It’s those elements, says Eden, that have given the story such staying power. 

“You really get invested in this story,” Eden says. “It’s brilliantly written. Susan Hill’s novel is fantastic and empathetic, and the play actually magnifies that…There’s a lot of empathy, and I think that and understanding where this specific horror comes from makes it much creepier. It stays with you.” 

The Woman in Black runs October 8-26 at Loretto-Hilton Center, 130 Edgar. For tickets and additional events, visit repstl.org.