A Midsummer Night’s Darkness - Call of Cthulhu actual play at the 2025 Ballarat Heritage Festival
Posted by Michael O'Brien on 27th Apr 2025
History speaks. On midsummer nights, on the Goldfields of Ballarat, it screams! From the creators of the ENNIE Award-winning William Bailey’s Haunted Mansion comes a new historical horror—part séance, part stage play, and all unscripted chaos.
A Midsummer Night’s Darkness
- City of Ballarat - 25 Armstrong Street South Ballarat Central, VIC 3350
- Thursday 22 May | 6:30pm – 9:30pm
- $5 In-Person | $2 Livestream
Inspired by Jane Routley’s chilling scenario A Midsummer Night’s Darkness from the Miskatonic Repository, this live Call of Cthulhu performance reimagines the 1891 Monster Petition for Women’s Suffrage through a lens of creeping dread and historical unease.
The recipe?
- Take a doughty group of suffragettes travelling through through the goldfields of Ballarat.
- Add two novice sorcerers hungry for arcane power.
- Stir in a vengeful poacher.
- Bake it all together on a warm midsummer evening—for a night of escalating terror.
Performed live by acclaimed tabletop roleplayers and streamed online, with live music, this one-night-only event brings cosmic horror and women’s history together in a tense, theatrical experience you won’t forget.
Part of the 2025 Ballarat Heritage Festival. Supported by GUF, Chaosium, Goodgames, the City of Ballarat, and Federation University, and hosted by Ballarat Library.