Elle Cota, Spectrum Editor
Did you survive five nights at Freddy’s? For audiences at the Richard Newdick Theatre in Shafer Street Playhouse, the answer came Sept. 25-27, when Doomsday VCU brought “Five Nights at Freddy’s the Musical” to the stage.
The production had five performances in total, with two showings on the 26 and 27.
The production was based on FNAF the Musical, created by Random Encounters in 2016, a YouTube channel created in 2011 by AJ Pinkerton, Nathan Morse and Peter Srinivasan. The musical was inspired by the 2014 horror video game “Five Nights at Freddy’s.”
Doomsday VCU used the original musical’s five songs and storyline while allowing the cast and creative team to make changes for the stage. The Random Encounters video runs for 30 minutes, while the stage production ran for 35 to 40 minutes due to transitions.
FNAF the Musical followed a night guard trying to survive five nights against the animatronics before eventually teaming up with them.
Cole Hurd, director of the musical and a fourth-year VCU theatre performance BFA student, said he grew up listening to the Random Encounters musical. He contacted Pinkerton about putting the musical on stage and, to his surprise, the creators agreed to let him produce it as long as they were credited.
The production was a passion project resulting from Hurd’s longtime interest in the original video.
“The biggest thing that I want as a director is to provide a space for people to direct, not only themselves, but the entire play itself cohesively rather than it be an authority figure and then lessers,” Hurd said.
The production did not attempt to make itself completely consistent with the FNAF series’ later established lore, according to Hurd.
“At the time, only ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s 2’ had come out as the most recent one,” Hurd said. “So, there’s no real lore established and there’s no real big story, but there’s characters, locations, ideas and concepts of the mascot horror theme.”
Although the original game is horror, the musical does not take itself seriously.
“Comedy 110%,” Hurd said. “It’s an absolute farce.”
Wesley Lee, the puppet master and fourth-year VCU communications arts student, made the puppets Freddy Fazbear, Chica the Chicken, Bonnie the Bunny and Foxy the Pirate Fox. The character Mr. Cupcake was made separately.
Lee said the designs were developed separately from the Random Encounters source material and were instead closer to the designs from the video game.
The four main animatronics were operated as hand-and-rod puppets. One hand controlled the puppet and the other operated a rod attached to its hand.
Developing the construction method was the most difficult part of the process, Lee said. They only had experience making one puppet in the past for a “Little Shop of Horrors” cosplay.
“It did take me a while to figure out how to construct the puppets because this isn’t really something I do very often,” Lee said.
The puppets shared the same basic construction, built from cardboard, along with different fabrics, Lee said. Foxy the Pirate Fox used longer fur to give the character a scuffier appearance.
Once Lee developed the process, each puppet took about four to five hours to complete. The first prototype took about two days.
Alix Beck, the costume designer and fourth-year VCU theatre student, said many of the costumes came from clothing the actors already owned. Beck utilized the Suit Yourself Closet at VCU for the button-up shirts and sweaters used for the security guard characters.
“It’s really just trying to find things for the cheapest I can,” Beck said.
Using existing clothing allowed Beck to devote more time to costumes that required construction: Marionette and Springtrap.
The Marionette costume required sewing, 3D printing and hand painting. Springtrap required several mock-ups before Beck began working with the final fur fabric, which was also Beck’s first time working with the material.
Beck said the experience reinforced the collaborative nature of the production. His original costume idea for the puppeteers was mosquito net bodysuits, but the idea did not fit the production’s vision. Instead, the final costumes represented their puppets’ base colors.
“This was a very stressful, but fun experience,” Beck said. “It was definitely a lot of learning to do all at once, but I thought that it was very enjoyable too.”
Lou Lane, who played Purple Guy and a first-year VCU theatre student, said she created a backstory for her character. In Lane’s version, Purple Guy was an alien trying to understand human culture and work culture while seeking more hours as a security guard.
“At first I was like, ‘Is it weird that I want Purple Guy to be an alien?’” Lane said. “Then I was like, ‘Wait, no, they said make big choices,’ and they ended up loving the idea.”
Lane auditioned for the production without knowing much about FNAF.
“After I got a callback, I watched this two-hour-long video that was like the entirety of the FNAF lore and I still don’t understand it,” Lane said.
In the original musical, Purple Guy referred to performer AJ, but Lane replaced those references with her own name, changing the lines to “Who’s who? It’s Lou” and “What’s goo? It’s Lou.”
Lane said her experience extended beyond the character. She said the production’s supportive and lighthearted environment reminded her why she enjoys acting.
“Yes, the role is important to me, yes, this show is important to me, but the community around it has been even more important,” Lane said.