Today we’d like to introduce you to Corinne Decost
Hi Corinne, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I grew up onstage. My parents met in theatre, I did my first show in utero. I started dancing at three, did dance competitions from six through high school, and did a ton of New England theatre. I didn’t realize it at the time but my childhood was immersed in horror and comedy.
I was kind of a weird kid. I was a huge bookworm and read lots of Joan Lowery Nixon and Margaret Peterson Haddix in middle school, Stephen King in high school. I was interested in horror movies and had been exposed to Alfred Hitchcock but I was much too scaredy-cat back then to watch current-day films. The special effects were just too real. Instead, I’d stay up late on Saturday nights to watch Monty Python on PBS then sneak in whatever spooky movies were free on-demand after my mom was asleep. That’s where I first saw the Sleepaway Camp trilogy – before then I didn’t realize how much fun and campy horror could really be. I dreamed of getting to make a movie like that.
Playing the Mina Harker character in Dracula was one of my greatest honors in high school. It was the signature production at the Amesbury Playhouse, a little theatre out in Massachusetts, and they had produced it once a year since the 1970s. It was a big deal there – they even had a local firefighter on site for the show’s pyrotechnics, and they had the same actor playing Dracula for over a decade. I worked on the show in some capacity every year of high school – whether holding the fog machine behind the coffin or running lights up in the booth. In 2009, I was cast as the leading girl. The role was so fun – the transformation from weak to the vampire’s Queen of the Night was a transformation of my own, from awkward teen to a confident young woman. I would go on to reprise the role in 2018 at The Strand in Dover, NH.
That wasn’t the only horror show I did – there was also a haunt in Maudsley State Park, stage managing an Agatha Christie show, a spooky performance as Ghost of Christmas Past, a senior project I directed and starred in based on Sleepaway Camp (called Sleepaway Camp: Camp Dead) – but if I tried to list out every spooky thing I did or costume I wore we’d be here all day. I also did several years of improv comedy and burlesque dancing alongside classic Vaudeville sketches on the dinner theatre side of the Amesbury Playhouse. All of it was always there, it just took a long time for me to recognize it.
In my first few weeks of college, I was cast in a sitcom-based student play, written and directed by Alec Lawless, and quickly made friends with the cast – composed mainly of Alec’s friends on the improv team I hadn’t auditioned for. I didn’t think of myself as funny but I spent the majority of my freshman year with the team – they showed me around and always had my back. That January, the guys did a show with other surrounding Boston college teams – improv and sketch – and I worked as a stagehand mostly because I wanted an invite to the afterparty. I ended up realizing during that show that sketch comedy was a thing, and showed up in the Performing Arts Office that Monday morning declaring that I wanted to start a sketch comedy troupe. That troupe has now been running for 12 years. That year I also aided in starting the arts ambassador program, which let students know about arts & culture events happening on and around our Boston campus – it has also been running for 12 years now.
I started doing immersive theatre professionally with a year-long run in the California tour of Netflix’s Stranger Things Experience. I’ve performed in Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights the last two years – my first year as Ellie in The Last of Us, and this September/October/November as M3gan in the RIP tour meet-and-greet. I loved bringing all these beloved characters to life. In October, I appeared as victim Haile Kifer and her mistaken identity Ashley Williams in Investigation Discovery’s Real Murders on Elm Street. I regularly appear on aforementioned college friend Alec Lawless’s podcast Wheel of Horror. Last November I also performed with Insomniac Events in their inaugural Apocalypse Zombie Land music festival and will be returning later this month for their second year. I’m also in an upcoming Katt Rardi music video as a Norman Bates-inspired motel receptionist.
Horror isn’t all I do, I just finished a nine-festival run as a lead in 27-minute short Desert Duet Harmony, where I portrayed a violin player. We won Best Drama Short at the Silicon Beach Film Festival at the TCL Chinese Theatres. But my next festival appearance is the debut of my first major horror film.
My first leading role in a feature film being in a horror-comedy makes perfect sense to me. Party of Darkness is an anthology featuring 8 stories from 8 directors, and I’ll be seen in the main wraparound storyline as well as my own featured segment as goth-girl Heather. Reading the script, I felt that Heather was an Anna Faris in Scary Movie kind of role – an excuse to be campy and over-the-top – and I loved that. Heather has a determination in her that I see in myself, she’ll do anything to get to her goal and get out of the boring human existence she’s been living in. There was also a lot in that that was obviously not me, but that’s what makes acting fun. She uses men around her, she sees them as the objects while they naively view her as one, but she is not one to be underestimated. She will rip your heart out. I’m excited to share it – and to share the screen with scream-queen Felissa Rose (the star of Sleepaway Camp) and so many other talented performers.
The world premiere of Party of Darkness will be at the historic 4 Star Theater as a part of Another Hole in the Head Film Festival in San Francisco on Saturday December 14th at 8:00pm, followed by a Q&A. It will also be at MegaCon Orlando with Indie Horror Junkie Film Festival in early February.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Oh, the road has never been smooth. I spent several years doubting myself. I also spent several years not realizing that what I do now could be a real career. I spent many years miserable at office jobs that weren’t right for me, trying to convince myself that I needed to be doing something like that to be successful. I stayed creative on the side, occasionally doing shows, directing sketch comedy at Improv Boston, making webseries appearances, even coming out with a rock album with band The Floating Lighthouse – but I didn’t make a career out of the creative stuff. My best job was working at Yamaha Music School, where I worked as enrollment coordinator and taught theatre – getting to utilize my creative brain at work helped me to thrive.
During the pandemic, when everything stopped, my partner was diagnosed with cancer. It was May 2020. For him to be able to come home from the hospital, I was given a doctor’s order to stay home and keep him in safe quarantine during chemo. I had to quit my job. I was lucky enough to have a colleague from Yamaha working on a new project – Multiverse Concert Series – he offered me some remote hours. I attended random Zoom audiences for talk shows and one day I was picked out by producers of the Wendy Williams Show who asked me to come on for my own segment. That led to me appearing on her show virtually three times during the pandemic, then another three times on The Nick Cannon Show (run by the same production company). The confidence from my mini-TV run led to me auditioning for Stranger Things, which led to everything today. Taking care of my partner, seeing him suffer, also reminded me how frighteningly short our time is here now – and that life is too short to not be pursuing your dreams. He’s healthy and with me now in Los Angeles, pursuing his own career in entertainment on the other side of the camera.
After landing out here in Los Angeles, I started working with a theatre program in schools and community centers across Los Angeles county. I’ve choreographed a few shows with them, and recently taught a week of Pop Star Camp – getting them onstage singing and dancing their favorite artist’s music gave them a whole new level of confidence. I still meet with kids once a week, helping them build that confidence onstage. We’ll be putting on a show in early December and I’m so proud of my talented young artists and all they do.
I continue working with non-profit Multiverse Concert Series, putting together immersive concert events with speakers from the likes of NASA or the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Their collaboration with the Museum of Science, Boston – Black Hole Symphony – will be performed at the Christa McAuliffe Center for two shows on December 14. It’s the same night as my movie premiere, kinda fun that I’ll simultaneously have events I’ve worked on playing at opposite sides of the country.
Acting is not all I do, but I credit these other things to keeping me well-rounded and grounded. Acting comes with a lot of rejection, a lot of auditions you’ll never hear back from. You’ve got to have a good head on your shoulders and a voice in the back of your head telling you you’ll get through it all.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I do it all. I act, dance, improvise, host. I’ll do stunt work, character & creature work, mascot work, sketch comedy, burlesque dance. I’m not afraid to do anything onstage or on film, and I’d love to try everything once.
I also enjoy my time offstage – helping manage media for the nonprofit or choreographing with the student programs. I’ve also directed and done a ton of tech work in my time. I love anything even remotely related to show business.
I may be best known for my work in horror and immersive theatre, but I never want to limit myself. The creativity in my soul is abundant.
I think what sets me apart from others is my drive and determination – I won’t let anything stop me anymore, and I’ll work nonstop to get to where I need to be. I have a rich and diverse background in show business that will help inform any role that I take moving forward. I’ve also lived a LOT of life. My face is very expressive, and I feel a lot of things very deeply. I have a lot to share with the world. I feel very…you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. I’ve only just begun.
I’ve just signed with my first theatrical and commercial talent agents. I had to figure out a lot of things on my own up to this point but now I’ve got a team behind me. I’m very excited about what’s to come next.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
Thank you to everyone who has ever been a part of my audience. I love my time with you all.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/corinnedecost
Image Credits
Steve Escarcega
Party of Darkness, Temporary Insanity Productions
Universal Studios Hollywood
Villians Online
Insomniac Entertainment
Desert Duet Harmony, Al Hasawi Productions
Cameron Rice
