Halloween fanatics too impatient to wait for tomorrow's festivities can get a head start by checking out Outlaws Theatre's annual Halloween show. The festivities begin at 11:30 p.m. in 119 Arts Building. Admission is free but the producers urge the audience to arrive early.

Rather than performing a normal full-length one-act sketch, the Outlaws' Halloween show will consist of nearly a dozen shorter, often humorous skits ranging five to ten minutes in length.

Outlaws acting veteran Vanessa Reseland (junior-musical theatre) turned in her first sketch ever for the show and can't wait to become part of the long-held tradition.

"This is the first script I've written for Outlaws, and I'm delighted it's for the Halloween show," she said. "It's a great tradition, and I'm pleased to be a part of it as more than an audience member."

Reseland's sketch takes a humorous look at a relationship between two homosexual vampires who, "have to deal with the harsher realities of life in a superficial America, obsessed with grooming and filled with insufficient self-images," she said.

"I love anything vampires, I love anything gay and I love anything receding. It's a lovely mixture, in my opinion," she added.

Taking a "stab" at writing some of the sketches are the Outlaws producers themselves, who have also taken on directing responsibilities.

Producer Justin Leahy (senior-theatre) has written a sketch about the Greek god Dionysses, who has become angry about human civilization.

"Basically he comes back to Earth to punish people for celebrating trick-or-treating and not enough orgies," Leahy said.

Some of the sketches also take a poke at pop culture and even politics as Chaz Moneypenny's (sophomore-musical theatre) sketch exemplifies. Titled "Harry Potter and the Gubernatorial Debacle," the play hypothesizes what would happen if Voldemort and Gray Davis tricked the well-known wizard into running for governor of California.

"I really enjoy current event humor and tried to put as much as I could into this one," Moneypenny said. "I think it's a really interesting way that I made an amalgam of the two."

Not all of the sketches are meant to be laughed at, however. The producers describe Andy Saunders' (junior-theatre) skits as mimicking a "theatre of cruelty" style, which emphasizes the showing of pain and suffering through gesture, movement and sound.

The producers themselves will appear in the show's final sketch and have a few surprises in store for the audience.

"If anyone is in any way shape or form involved in the drama department, there's a surprise twist ending that they'll love," Patti Grabb (senior-theatre) said.

But, as always, the Outlaws producers intend for the show to be enjoyed by all.

"People should be warned that if they come, they'll "howl" with laughter ... get it?" Sean Bradley (junior-theatre) joked.

Moneypenny said that he believes the performance will provide students with an opportunity to view a style of theatre that is often very difficult to find around Penn State.

"I would say it's some of the most experimental theater you'll see all year on campus," he said. "You'll get stuff that's way out there. Stuff that's got that deranged quality to it that you don't get anywhere else but Outlaws."