CINCINNATI — Ophelia Kingsley, an esteemed thereminist who has been a featured guest player with the London Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, recently took a job at Screamz Manor to help pay her bills.
“I’ve performed pieces like Camille Saint-Saëns’ ‘The Swan’ for audiences in the most beautiful concert halls across the world. Now, I get to play for a bunch of bored teenagers in what was once a Blockbuster Video in a failing strip mall,” said Kingsley. “I could either take this job or start learning a more lucrative instrument. Bassoon players, accordionists…. even lowly triangle players pull in more annually than me.”
Buzz Eastman, a self-described “serial entrepreneur” who launched Screamz Manor, says the project is the culmination of his creative vision and love of money.
“This ain’t your mommy and daddy’s haunted house. We got Draculas, we got gorillas, heck we even have both Freddies and Jasons,” said Eastman while counting a stack of single dollar bills. “There’s also a fancy lady who doesn’t look like she wants to be there waving her hands over a television antenna making spooky sounds to scare the bejeezus out of you. I went ahead and hired this woman who plays some sorta crazy instrument that sounds right out of a B-movie. Her sound effects are bringing a whole ‘nother level of ‘creepy’ to the gig!”
Classical music critic Agatha Pemberton commented on Kingsley’s performance in the Manor’s penultimate fright night.
“While it was difficult to hear over the laughter of people responding to the actors stumbling around unable to see through their ill-fitting monster masks, Kingsley’s ethereal playing filled the space with beauty, which would otherwise be a dark void lacking any sense of art or trace of human intellect,” said Pemberton while adjusting her opera glasses. “Perhaps next year she will finally play in one of these establishments that is worth her pedigree, such as Halloween Horror Nights on the West Coast. Anywhere else is, frankly, a waste.”
As of press time, Kingsley’s act of selling out and loss of dignity has brought in extra income that has made it possible for her to pay off .001% of the interest on the student loan she took out to study classical music at the Berklee College of Music.