The LCHS Theatre Department worked in collaboration with local eccentricities store Appalachian Oddities on Saturday, October 15, in order to raise funds for a future trip to see a Broadway performance in New York City. 

Fundraising for the trip took place as Appalachian Oddities hosted its first Pumpkin Festival, which ran from 10 am–10 pm. 

 Attractions included a 50/50 raffle, a scavenger hunt, putt-putt  and other similar Halloween themed challenges, while concessions distributed by the Theatre Department’s students included fresh apple cider, coffee and chocolate milk.  

Students worked in alternating shifts from noon to 6:00 pm, finishing just in time for the Twilight Pumpkin Stroll, wherein participants viewed pumpkins given by the community in a carving competition, in its duration from 7 pm–10 pm. 

“It was very fun,” Phoebe Queen, junior theater student who helped spearhead the activity, said. “I feel like a bunch of people I don’t know went to this, so it was really like the community coming together.”  

Queen added that Appalachian Oddities was “the best place to have [the Pumpkin Festival] because it’s the coolest place in Weston,” and that the company should host another event. 

Senior Theater student Asa Krinov agreed. “It was a good start to a yearly tradition that I hope more people get involved with as the years pass,” he said. “[There are] plenty of good things to do there.”  

The Pumpkin Festival also featured Paint Misbehavin’, another local and woman-owned business, that supplied face paint and balloon twisting to the Halloween-centric event.  

“I think that the Pumpkin Festival is a great idea,” Theatre Adviser Doug Seckman said. “I look forward to seeing it become something that the entire community will enjoy.”  

The LCHS Theatre Department continued to be busy this year by executing this fundraiser project, while also practicing for an upcoming competition piece, and organizing a full play production set to hit the stage this November. 

Arsenic and Lace will be performed November 16, 17 and 18.