Fourth-year Dramatic Arts (DART) students Jaxson Schut, (left), and Gabriela Queiros perform in Enjoy Your Stay a new play premiering at Brock University’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts on Friday, April 10.
published Thursday, April 02, 2026 in The Brock News | by Gillian Minaker
Fourth-year Dramatic Arts students are inviting audiences on a harrowing journey to a sinister hotel haunted by a controlling spirit — a hotel so grand guests might not want to leave.
Enjoy Your Stay, a production by Kaleidoscope Collective, opens at the Marilyn I. Walker Theatre on Friday, April 10.
The play follows the journey of staff members trapped in a seemingly lavish hotel where the spirit of a man lives inside the walls. The spirit controls the building and all within, including a woman who has been trapped for decades.
Fourth-year DART student and performer Victoria Marshall performs in Enjoy Your Stay, a new production by Kaleidoscope Collective.
When two new faces enter the story, Edith and Lilian, the world of the hotel begins to shift. While clumsy and shy Edith falls prey to the horrors within, Lilian uses her spiritual gift to uncover the mystery of the building and the truths hidden in the walls.
A key theme explored is humanity’s tendency toward obsessiveness and control and how it can lead to a path of destruction.
The play was created as part of DART 4D56 Collaborative Play Development, an upper-year Dramatic Arts (DART) course in which students collaborate as a theatre company to produce and mount a new play.
Fourth-year DART student Victoria Marshall said the sense of community in the collective has been powerful.
“We all know theatre is a community, and this process has been both intense and beautiful,” she said.
From scriptwriting to stage management and acting, the student collective came together throughout the year to explore their creativity while building theatre making skills.
The experience has helped Marshall deepen her skills as an actor while gaining a broader understanding of the many gears that make the machine of theatre turn.
“It’s been so refreshing to try my hand in every aspect of the production. Whether helping with lights, hanging curtains or helping to install a set, I am trying new things I wouldn’t have touched before,” she said.
Fourth-year DART student Nav Brar works as Head of Wardrobe, Assistant Production Manager and as part of the lighting Crew on Enjoy Your Stay.
Like Marshall, fourth-year DART student Stewart Shaw said learning about the design process and how a show gets made has been a valuable experience.
Shaw has worked as Lighting Designer, Technical Director, Head of Props and Projections Designer on the play, honing technical skills including how to do projections on QLab and operating various lighting and production technologies simultaneously.
“I’ve also learned a lot about the decisions that have to be made along the way — the paperwork, the documentation and the process of creating an idea into a prototype and how things can change along the way,” they said.
Enjoy your Stay runs Friday, April 10 at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, April 11 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; and Sunday, April 12 at 2 p.m. at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts. Tickets can be purchased through University Tickets.
