Horror flick filming begins at old playhouse BY COLLEEN LUTOLF Staff Writer JOHN E SZPARA staff Danny Scott Cerchiaro directs his cast during the filming of “The Tree Behind the Church” at the Edison Valley Playhouse. The film is Cerchiano’s first screenplay and feature-length film debut. EDISON — Actors and production crews will be working the Edison Valley Playhouse stage through May, but you can’t score any tickets to this show. The disused, dilapidated theater will be the location of a full-length feature film — a ghost story. Danny Scott Cerchiaro, the director, screenwriter and producer of the “The Tree Behind the Church,” hasn’t come across any paranormal activities at the 110-year-old structure that began as the Marconnier Reformed Church. SCOTT PILLING staff Cast members from “The Tree Behind the Church,” a feature-length film being shot at the Edison Valley Playhouse, rehearse a scene at the theater last week. But he should have enough ghosts to go around, if only in the metaphorical sense. Cerchiaro’s inspiration for the movie’s plot, which is part ghost story, part love story, part historical narrative, was an 1896 wedding announcement in the Westfield Leader , a local newspaper that still publishes. “I found a little clip while I was doing research on the church,” he said. “The article describes the bride and groom, the ceremony and the dancing, and the dark doors opened up in my head. I thought, ‘What would happen if the groom killed her?’ ” The first-time screenwriter sat in a row of 40-year-old theater seats that haven’t been warmed by audience members since 2001, when the playhouse presented “Snoopy” as its final production. The church’s original stained-glass windows were the only light source in the building that was covered in cobwebs and cluttered with detritus of random objects. One of them was in the hands of Joe Conti, Cerchiaro’s crew director. “I just found this,” Conti said, holding up a dirt-encrusted shovel. “Could we use this?” “Yeah, that’d be great,” Cerchiaro said. “That’s going to be a murder weapon.” The film begins with five college kids looking for a place to rehearse for an upcoming university production. They decide the Edison Valley Playhouse — renamed the Whitestone Valley Playhouse in the film — is the perfect spot. “But once they’re inside, they can’t get out,” Cerchiaro said. “They start hearing voices and screams in the church.” Soon the ghosts inhabiting the church inhabit the church’s new inhabitants, Cerchiaro said. “Each character has its own ghost that follows them around wherever they walk,” he said. “But when they turn around, the ghosts are always gone.” Once the ghosts inhabit the 20-somethings they are stalking, the only way out for the wayward students is to act out the murderous events of a wedding night 100 years before. But the plot becomes even more complex. Later the characters discover that the groom murdered his wife because she was having an affair with a black man. The tree behind the church is where they met and where they are buried, Cerchiaro said. “When I try to describe it to people, I say it’s kind of sci-fi, kind of a love story and kind of like ‘Friends,’ ” said Brooklyn actor Andre McSween. Cerchiaro hired Sayreville resident and friend Dan Petitt for the role of old Mr. O’Neill. “I have no acting experience at all,” Petitt said. “I auditioned for the part, and for some reason he fell in love with me.” The same thing occurred when Cerchiaro entered the church-cum-playhouse for the first time, the director said. “It looks so spooky,” he said. “We’re not changing any of it. That’s the best part of it. The building itself will be a character in the movie.” The playhouse basement, lit only by a single naked bulb, only adds to the eerieness. “See, it gets real spooky, really quick,” Cerchiaro said as he descended down the rickety basement stairs. “It’s custom made for a scary story.” Old mismatched wooden chairs hang from the ceiling, along with a spool of barbed wire. Piles of old school desks are stacked against the church’s original foundation of cemented field stones. A grimy layer of white paint covers the walls. “It’s so much better to have the actual church as the setting,” said actor Suzanna Suazo, of Staten Island, N.Y. “I mean, we have real spider webs, real broken steps.” Cerchiaro and the cast and crew will be shooting at the Edison Valley Playhouse throughout May, he said. After production, Valley Playhouse Productions will renovate the playhouse, said Rich Monteiro, president of the organization. Monteiro expects the playhouse to be fully operational by fall. Once Cerchiaro completes postproduction work in his office, Miracle Studios in Iselin, he will submit “The Tree Behind the Church” to various film festivals with hopes to have it picked up by a distributing company.