Northrop students are bringing Fort Wayne’s history to life with ‘The Haunted Forest’

This Halloween season, Northrop High School theatre students will guide audiences through the winding paths of Lindenwood Nature Preserve and Cemetery in their original production, The Haunted Forest. Yes, there will be jump scares and eerie characters, but beneath the ghostly theatrics lies something far deeper: a lesson in empathy, storytelling, and the shared humanity that connects Fort Wayne’s past and present.

The students, who have dubbed their theatre company The Haunted Hikers, are bringing local history to life through an experimental form of performance known as devised theatre, blending art, research, and community storytelling. Their production, created in collaboration with the Allen County Public Library’s Genealogy Center and the Fort Wayne Parks and Recreation Department, is part haunted attraction, part historical reenactment, and part youth-led exploration of memory and identity.

For Director Gabriel Walburn, the project represents more than a seasonal production: it’s a living classroom where students learn how creativity can build friendships, intergenerational connections, and a sense of self. 

A new kind of high school theatre

Walburn, a Fort Wayne-based theatre artist and educator, was invited by Northrop drama teacher Ella Eggold to direct the project after the school’s fall play auditions attracted roughly 90 students, which was far more than could fit in a single production. To ensure that more young people could participate, Eggold and the Genealogy Center teamed up with the Fort Wayne Parks and Recreation Department to create a second, student-driven Halloween event at Lindenwood. 

Walburn was the ideal fit. A graduate of IPFW’s theatre program and the University of the Arts’ Pig Iron School in Philadelphia, she specializes in devised theatre, a collaborative process where performers generate the material themselves through improvisation, discussion, and experimentation rather than performing from a traditional script.

“It’s one of the most empowering forms of art-making I’ve ever experienced,” Walburn explains. “It teaches people that their ideas matter, that their voice is essential to the story.”

Each rehearsal begins with creative prompts – sometimes philosophical, sometimes absurd. One recent exercise involved drawing random phobias from a hat and developing mini horror scenes around them.

“One student got a fear of the moon and a fear of cooked pasta,” Walburn says with a laugh, recalling how the student created a surreal character with a moon head who lures people in with a song before pulling spaghetti out of her mouth. The result was both grotesque and hilarious, but it showed how uninhibited the students’ creativity becomes when the space feels safe.

“I throw prompts at them, and they throw spaghetti at the wall,” Walburn says. “Together, we see what sticks.”

Other students concocted creepy button-eyed ghosts, dancing spirits, and silent crypt keepers who guide audiences through the cemetery. 

“My job is to make the space safe enough that they feel comfortable to explore these ideas… to pick out the magic that they come up with, to turn it into something they’re super passionate about performing, and get to be their whole self inside of these characters,” Walburn explains.

Autonomy is also central to Walburn’s teaching philosophy. 

“I always try to give them agency as much as possible in the space, so that way they feel more safe to open up into creative processes,” she says. “Part of that is giving them a company name, letting them come up with company rules, a company catchphrase, or designing their own t-shirt.”

Learning history through storytelling

While most of the group works on scares and atmosphere, a smaller team of students is writing and performing original monologues based on real individuals buried at Lindenwood. These short pieces are grounded in historical research developed with the help of the Allen County Public Library’s Genealogy Center, led by Allison DePrey Singleton, genealogy services manager.

Singleton says the collaboration took root after having conversations with colleagues from the Fort Wayne Parks and Recreation and the Lindenwood Nature Preserve. 

“I’ve been doing cemetery tours for years and had a really good relationship with Lindenwood,” she says. “We started brainstorming and came up with this idea. It just kind of grew from there.”

To support the students’ research, the Genealogy Center compiled a list of individuals buried along the cemetery trail and created detailed research packets for each. Staff gathered information from Find A Grave, Ancestry, and historical newspaper archives, pulling census and death records to help students build fuller portraits of the people they would portray. The goal was to give them enough context to write thoughtful, historically grounded monologues that honor each person’s life and story.

When choosing subjects, Singleton emphasized relatability over notoriety. 

“I wanted everyday people, not the Fort Wayne famous,” she says. 

She points to Emma Trautman, who was just 24 when she died in 1892 from consumption (tuberculosis). Her obituary noted that she was the daughter of a policeman, a detail Singleton says helps students imagine the human story behind the record, how her death might have affected her family, and what life was like for them at the time.

The point, she says, is connection. 

“The biggest thing I want anyone to take away, students, or anyone who comes and visits, is that our ancestors, the people who come before us, they’re just like us. They have their own stories. They have amazing things happen. They have horrible things happen. And they’re everyday people like you and me,” Singleton says.

Creating safe and inclusive spaces

That sense of connection, and seeing the humanity in others, is also at the heart of how Walburn approaches her work with students. After years of working in both arts education and youth programs, Walburn is passionate about building emotionally safe environments where young artists feel free to express themselves.

Her philosophy was shaped partly by her own educational journey. As a student at IPFW, Walburn studied under Professor Jeffrey Casazza, whom she calls a lifelong mentor. Later, in Philadelphia, she completed a master’s in devised performance while running a youth summer program at a country club.

“That job taught me as much about pedagogy as theatre,” she says. “I learned how to create safe spaces, check your own biases, and design lessons that honor every student’s background. My main goal is really just to facilitate and foster a safe space where people feel comfortable and safe, to explore new ideas and share those ideas communally and collaboratively.”

That ethos has paid off. Even though most of the cast are freshmen balancing sports, homework, jobs, and social lives, they consistently show up eager to participate. 

Bringing Lindenwood to life

Singleton says this work feels different from typical classroom visits. 

“Usually, we’re in history classrooms or English classrooms, so getting to work with theatre students is a little bit different, but so amazing because they get to bring their creativity and all of the things they’ve been learning to this project.”

A large degree of thoughtfulness and respect for the deceased is built into the process. 

“We submitted them to the Lindenwood Cemetery for approval to make sure there wasn’t going to be any issues with the individuals that were chosen,” Singleton explains. She added that the students’ mindset is to “bring these individual stories back to life… It has nothing to do with sensationalizing.”

Singleton also says the educational value is clear. 

“Learning from our past will always help us in our futures,” she says, “And also, cemeteries can be great fun.”

“Genealogy is not all about the names, the dates and the places,” Singleton says. “It’s about the stories of those individuals, and this is a way to bring them back to life.

Preserving the past, empowering the present

As opening night approaches, Walburn reflects on how it all started with a group of teenagers eager to create something new and meaningful. 

“I hope they walk away with a sense of fun, a sense of play, happy memories that they can take away, and new friendships that they can grow with,” Walburn says. “And I hope they meet with a sense of confidence and self-assuredness, that they belong, and the things that they can create together are really exciting.”

Ultimately, the collaboration shows that preserving history means more than looking back. It also means helping the next generation look within.

If You Go

The production guides small groups through a half-mile path in Lindenwood, with scenes staged among trees, headstones, and atmospheric lighting. Safety is central. Walburn and Eggold are coordinating with cemetery staff on pathways, lighting, supervision, and parent volunteers with walkie-talkies.

There are three nightly showtimes. The 6 p.m. performance is “lightly spooky,” better for young families. The 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. shows are darker and more immersive. Admission is free with advance registration through Fort Wayne Parks and Recreation.

What: The Haunted Forest, a haunted history tour at Lindenwood Cemetery, followed by a spooky hike through Lindenwood Nature Preserve.

When: October 24-26, with performances at 6, 7 and 8 p.m.

Where: Lindenwood Cemetery, Fort Wayne

Who: Presented by the Allen County Public Library, Northrop High School Theatre Department and Fort Wayne Parks & Recreation

Admission: Free, but pre-registration is required through Fort Wayne Parks and Recreation