Niki Luparelli & Haunted Speakeasy band
People who have seen the advertisements and read local news articles may still not know what are the events known as Haunted Speakeasy produced by Worcester-based singer, comedian, and zany local celebrity Niki Luparelli.
“I’s me and my eight, nine piece band and we do three sets,” she said. “It’s burlesque and drag performances. There are haunted house actors hiding in the darkness.”
Bull Mansion site of Haunted Speakeasy; 55 Pearl Street, Worcester
Luparelli’s Haunted Speakeasy events on October 14th and October 15th require participants to wear period costumes. The Worcester version of Haunted Speakeasy is produced by Luparelli in the city’s Bull Mansion, a structure located at 55 Pearl Street once owned by the city’s upper crust, including a doctor who horribly tortured his wife. The Bull Mansion has two bars on different floors and a satellite cash bar. There is also food included in VIP tickets.
Luparelli has rented the venue. Worcester’s Nuestra Restaurant is there full time as a restaurant and they have usage of the whole building and will be providing the food for VIP ticket holders as well as their bar while Luparelli will be bringing some of her own bartenders
“I put on the shows because I love old haunted places, I’m obsessed with the building, and it’s the absolute most perfect spot,” the singer said. “I started Haunted Speakeasy there, and, I wouldn’t have been able to bring it to Salem, the Vegas of Halloween, otherwise.”
Huge turnout last year
Luparelli has only one major issue working at the Bull Mansion. It actually does appear to be haunted. This requires Luparelli to take steps to guard herself at certain times.
“I definitely don’t go in there by myself,” she said. “It feels haunted. I hear sounds and get super creeped out.”
Though Luparelli has worked the venue previously, she is quite serious when she says she won’t enter the mansion alone.
Kandi Dishe performs at previous Haunted Speakeasy.
“At least one other person,”Luparelli admits. “I used to book there and for a while. (Boston dancer) Kandi Dishe and I were running it, so we were there all the time, but I needed to have at least one person in there with me.” Although it’s not clear if the ghosts are dangerous or cautionary, Luparelli said they constantly make their presence clear.
“People hear the sounds of partying when there is no one there. But I swear they break things on purpose,” she said. When asked if she thought she’d lose her mind if she spent time alone there, like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, she said:
Burlesque dancer entertains at previous Haunted Speakeasy
“I got the feeling that I was destined to haunt that place too, yes,” the singer said. “That’s what I based the whole party on. Walking into the gold room and there being this haunted 1920s party around Jack.”
Luparelli has some theories as to why there is so much psychic tension at the Bull Mansion.
“I think there was domestic violence between the original occupants, Dr Bull and his wife Sara,.” the Worcester singer said. “There is a cracked mirror in the parlor, and the break looks to me like a pressure break, like someone was pushing a woman against the glass, maybe choking her, and the glass cracked around her bottom. They got divorced. No one got divorced back then, but she had money, much more than him. Her dad was Daniel Wesson of smith and Wesson.”
Yet, there is an obvious counter argument to this theory. “But, neither of them died there,: Luparelli said, “so it’s hard to say who the ghosts are. Definitely some staff, and we think some little children of the staff, the fourth floor, which were the servants’ quarters, is the creepiest place.”
There is also a more obvious nervous place at Bull Mansion. “Everyone is scared shitless of the basement too. It’s old, huge, with different dark spaces, dirt floors, the whole nightmare. That to me is the scariest spot.”
Luparelli is terrified of the basement.
“Well, I won’t go down alone. I feel like something is watching and that I want to run up the stairs as fast as I can.”
Whatever is in there, it does not want to murder, assault, or possess Luparelli.
“It wants us to leave,” she said. “But it seemed to like all the girls I had changing in the dressing room. I talk to the ghosts when I’m there, like
‘Hey, it’s your old pal, Niki,’” she continued. “Don’t you like how interesting it is when I’m here? Don’t you like seeing naked girls? Then stop breaking shit and be cool.”
Last year’s revelers
Ghosts like naked girls in the changing room?
“I mean, I’m not a psychic but they seemed to,” Luparelli said. “That’s the room where I’m most comfortable. That broken mirror seems to be the vortex. We had a psychic come once and she said that’s where everything comes in.”
Luparelli uses the old master bedroom as a dressing room. She and the other women cast members are unfazed by ghosts admiring their bodies.
“The dancers do not give a single fuck,” Luparelli said, laughing. “No one seems bothered. They are used to changing in front of people so what’s another invisible guy.”
Luparelli changes in there as well. It does not bother her that a ghost might be finding her sexually attractive.
Niki Luparelli feeling haunted
“I’m counting on it,” Luparelli said. “If you’re over 100, I’m your type.”
When asked if she thinks the ghosts find her attractive, the singer expressed diffidence.
“I doubt they do, honestly,” she said. “I don’t know if they were into the plus sized gals back then.”
For anyone interested in communing with people from the beyond or interested in Luparelli’s show The Haunted Speakeasy, October 14, October 15, 9:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. at the Bull Mansion in Worcester, please visit:
http://www.thehauntedspeakeasy.com/
https://hauntedspeakeasy.eventbrite.com
