Halloween meets Hollywood in Seattle

Visitors to the Skeleton Theatre in West Seattle tonight and Wednesday night will be treated to the sight of Gory Spelling emerging from behind a curtain to take center stage, her flowing blond hair clipped back to show her bony jaw.

Dead McMahon appears stage left, his tiger-striped tuxedo covering up his lack of skin and abundance of bones. And at stage right, Bony Danza, wearing a shredded plaid shirt, gestures broadly like any good actor.

But if the players are all skeletons, the dozen or so folks behind the scenes at this two-night show on Chris Walker's front lawn are very much flesh and blood.

There's cousin David Walker, who spent 12-hour days programming the stage positions of the talking skeletons. They'll ride tracks up and down the stage and act out scenes from at least 10 movies, including "A Bug's Life" and "Pride and Prejudice."

There's Charlie Hiatt, an automation specialist who spent 14 hours over the weekend on skeleton robotics to make sure the actors' jaws move to dialogue, their heads nod and their arms wave theatrically.

And there's Dave Baldwin, a Bothell cop, Walker's close friend and fellow mastermind, who contributed professional theater lighting and spent hours carving the massive skull that hangs above the stage.

A freelance sound designer who once worked for Seattle's Intiman Theatre, Walker, 42, collected the crew to carry out his vision for a day that embraces the supernatural and theatrics — even though they will have just two performances before the theater is taken down out of respect for the neighbors and the building inspector. (He didn't need permits, Walker said, because the structure is temporary.)

Where to see it


The Skeleton Theatre is at 3201 36th Ave. S.W. in West Seattle. Chris Walker said the show will go from about 6-9 p.m. today and Wednesday.

"Christmas is more payoff," he said. "But Halloween is essentially so much more theatrical. There's so much more room for bizarreness."

And his cousin David has a theory on why they were inspired to go to all the trouble.

"I think there's some secret mind-control beacon set up on the roof to draw in smart people," he said. "[Chris] knew he could pull it off because he could get the crazy people."

Chris Walker isn't really crazy. At least he doesn't appear that way while sitting in a chair on the second floor of his home, talking about how he once painted a castle for daughter Suscha's birthday at 3 a.m., and pulled an all-nighter to make a pirate ship rock properly for a Halloween display.

But he takes pride in not being, well, normal. He wasn't upset last year when a building inspector told him as much while checking out a 20-foot-high structure built for an underwater-themed Halloween.

"He gave me the reason why I'm doing this," Walker said. "Because it's not normal and because I can."

One year, he and Baldwin built a fully functioning merry-go-round, big enough for several kids, for Suscha's birthday. Another year, she was treated to a castle with a waterfall.

When Walker and wife Maia Low lived in Boston, trick-or-treaters were greeted one year by a spaceship on the house's roof that moved forward, shone lights on the porch and talked to them.

This year's show is mostly kid-oriented, playing off films like "Shrek" and Harry Potter (although they do have "Apocalypse Now" thrown in as well). With skeleton actors, the show is inherently comical. It's also riveting to watch, as those bony mouths move in time to the dialogue.

Unlike the other fanatics fueling what the National Retail Federation says is nearly $5 billion in projected Halloween spending, Walker, who teaches sound design at the University of Washington, is motivated more by theater than a childhood attachment to haunted houses or a passion for scary movies.

Normally, projects are limited to Walker, who works on technical details and software programming, and Baldwin, who also has a background in theater and takes care of the artistic side.

This year, they ratcheted up the Halloween effort with a crew that includes former theater friends who flew up from Los Angeles and an admiring neighbor who volunteered his services.

But their projects are always more ambitious than their skill set and resources, Baldwin said. "Chris never scales back," he said. "Everything has to be bigger."

The Skeleton Theatre includes plenty of computer power to coordinate dialogue, skeleton movements and lighting.

Walker and Baldwin started working seriously on the project about two and a half weeks before Halloween, with various Skeleton Theatre members pitching in over that time period. Walker estimates the project has cost $1,500.

The theater will reappear next year, his wife said, but in the bigger-and-better vein, of course.

"Some men play golf, watch football," Low said. For Chris, "it's his chance to create something that's completely his vision."

Curious neighbors often ask what Walker is building each year, and several said they love seeing the latest creation. He always takes the structures down quickly, they said.

Walker's projects are part of the neighborhood's charm, said neighbor Bruce Loop.

"We love it," he said. "How could anybody not?"

Nicole Tsong: 206-464-2150 or ntsong@seattletimes.com