Midwestern

Behind The Bars Back At Huron County Historic Gaol

Behind the Bar is back at the Huron County Historic Gaol.

The popular summer exhibit has evolved over the years but Curator, Sinead Cox says the basic premise has remained the same for the last few years. She explains volunteer actors are given a bio of a past criminal or staff member at the jail and are provided with as much historical information on that real person as possible. But the volunteer actor then does as much research as they can to make that character their own. Then visitors to the jail ask the actors questions about their character.

Cox says they have different characters from night to night and there are no set answers. The actors are not given scripts and at times are required to ad lib but they remain in character when the do that. There are two new features this year. The first is that visitors can now book their visits on-line by going to the Huron County Museum web site. The second is that as well as being available on Tuesday and Thursday evenings through July and August, it will also be available on Wednesday evenings for the month of August.

“They get to meet volunteers that are portraying real people from the jail's past, both criminals and staff, or accused criminals in some of the cases, you can make up your own mind, but we will always have a good mix of lunatics and drunkards and accused murderers, thieves.”

“We have different characters night to night and what happens is we give them what we know from the historical records and then the actors make it their own and then when the audience comes they ask questions, so depending on what the visitor asks, they're going to get a different experience than the last visitor.”

Read More Local Stories