TRACY - It’s Fright Night at The Grand Theatre Centre for the Arts in Tracy. What’s even more scary – at least for pre-teens who enjoy everything frightful about Halloween – is that this artful dread-full walk-thru event is only open to teens and adults.

“Deep inside the bowels of the Grand Theatre Center for the Arts lie relics of a twisted and horrific time during the vaudeville days when a madman used it as a hideous and secret lab,” so goes the description of the Haunted House “Halloween at the Grand” offering in Tracy’s downtown district.

“The abused spirits are seeking revenge,” the frightening notice about this event goes further.

“We have done it for three years, and for lots of reasons,” said William F. Wilson II, co-Arts Program Manager at the Grand Theatre.

Foremost of these reasons, he said, is that “Tracy has a great tradition of celebrating Halloween. Halloween is big in Tracy.”

A big part of that Halloween party atmosphere is happening today downtown around the Grand Theatre Center for the Arts, a $19 million redevelopment project by the City of Tracy which brought back the heart of this historic town to life a few years ago with the completion of this grand project.

Today all over downtown, everyone from kids to adults will be in full Halloween costume, first by lining up and doing a big parade right down through Central Avenue, and then going trick and treating at all the downtown businesses.

“This is part of Tracy’s long-time tradition, and we want to support the downtown” Wilson said of the Halloween parade and trick-and-treating.

There are many other Halloween-themed offerings as well during the month of October. For instance, there are the high school homecoming parades. There were three of them this month, with the last one featuring the West High School parade on Friday, Wilson said. Earlier in the month, the homecoming parade spotlight was focused on Tracy High and Millennium High, he said.

Then, of course, there is the so-called Halloween Grand Theatre package including horror picture shows thrown in which kicked off last Saturday.

“Each year as Halloween approaches, evil energy creeps through the theatres as the abused spirits from long ago seek revenge. Each night as All Hallow’s Eve gets closer, the energy grows and scenes from the past repeat themselves over and over, growing and seeking to absorb any unsuspecting soul who comes near,” goes a further description of the Haunted House at the Grand.

“Dare to witness this phenomenon, but beware… you might be overcome by fear experiencing the horror unfolding before your eyes,” concludes the scary warning about the Haunted House at the Grand.

While the Haunted House offering is only for teens and adults and not for small children, parents can always make the choice whether they want to take their kids in, explained Wilson.

The whole Grand Theatre building, in fact, will be open during the showing of the Haunted House, he said. Besides the Haunted House, which comes with a $10 fee per person, there are many free events that are open for the entire family at The Grand not just in the evening but throughout the day, Wilson said.

The Haunted House walk thru, which includes the theaters and all of the back stage, will run through Oct. 31 starting at 7 p.m. The announcements say it ends at 10 p.m.; however, they will close “until the last person goes out” of the Haunted House, Wilson explained.

“Like everything else around here, it’s a growing program,” he said of the Halloween Haunted House at the Grand.

Last year, the event attracted 400 to 500 visitors. “We’re shooting for 1,000 this year.”

“It’s an alternative, something to do on Halloween,” he said of the Haunted House at the Grand.

— ROSE ALBANO RISSO

209 staff reporter