Sylvia Ashby, whose exciting Professor Zuccini's Traveling Tales and Shining Princess of the Slender Bamboo are universally popular, turns her talents to Halloween in this script. It's just scary enough to keep kids fascinated without giving them nightmares. Performers may be adults or children. "This daffy comedy will appeal to everyone."—Plays for Children and Young Adults, recommending it for grades 2-12.

Malvolia, as mean as witches ought to be, shows a soft heart when handsome young Tobias appears. But Tobias falls for Belinda, the pretty young house maid. It's Halloween, and Malvolia is determined to get revenge on Tobias and Belinda by casting a magic spell. The Professor, who once practiced white magic, could help the young lovers if he could only remember how to make his incantations work...and what the Magic Door can do.

The script offers opportunities for using children from the audience in the Apparition scenes. The play is funny enough to entertain adults and just scary enough to delight little children without frightening them.

"It was scary—but fun!" one young viewer commented.

The director of a high school production described the script as "the most entertaining children's play I've ever worked with. The actors loved it. Audiences were intrigued from beginning to end. A simple but clever plot—all in thirty minutes! Even our Assistant Principal was chanting the Caterpillar's refrain the next morning." An Albuquerque, New Mexico, production received "an overwhelmingly positive response from elementary school children and teachers."

Originally designed for a touring company of six, the first production involved a cast of 45—the entire fifth and sixth grade classes of a private school.

According to the Headmaster, the play "received marvelous reviews from parents, students, faculty, special friends...and enhanced our Halloween celebration in such a wholesome, dramatic, and fun-filled fashion!"

Except for a sliding "Magic Door," very little scenery is necessary. For the Apparition sequences, directors can use whatever talent and costumes are available. In a small cast, offstage actors double as Apparitions. See Production Notes at the back of the script for details. Though the play works wonderfully at Halloween, it has been performed successfully in February as well as October. At Halloween time, encourage little folk to wear their own costumes to performances. One act; set, in a witch's workshop; time, Halloween.

Other Ashby plays: Happily Ever After, Don Coyote, Once Upon a Santa Claus, Santa Claus is Missing!

See also: Animal Characters