A portion of your ticket sales go to feed New York's homeless—can you comment on that?I was honestly so psyched to even be in a position where I was able to offer it. My dad donated all of his haunted-house proceeds to juvenile diabetes. He also did a Christmas version of this in the wintertime called Winter Wonderland, even though we're Jewish. Apparently, that was a big inspiration. When my siblings and I had our bar and bat mitzvahs, my parents told us to ask for donations to a charity of our choice in lieu of gifts. My little sister, older brother and father all have type 1 juvenile diabetes, so they chose that, and my older sister picked breast cancer in honor of my mom. I picked a woman and children's shelter in Hartford, Connecticut, called My Sister's Place. I have worked with them ever since, but I thought it was more appropriate to give back to the community that Madame Morbid resides in.

I see that you do special events in addition to your tours. Did these come later as Madame Morbid started to become more popular? Do you intend to add more?Everyone in the Madame Morbid office gets super excited and creative when coming up with new tours! Honestly, we probably started making lists of ideas before we even opened. Someone will say something like, "I feel like playing with dogs." Then, boom! There’s a "Bring Your Own Dog Tour" the next day.

Do you think your time at SVA influenced you as you created Madame Morbid?In a way. My ultimate goal in life is to sell a script. I spent four years studying film at SVA. Madame Morbid may be my business, but SVA reminds me that I still have other goals I'd like to achieve.

What are your hopes for Madame Morbid moving forward?I want Madame Morbid to have lots of babies and eventually buy timeshares in other cities. Maybe we'll also come out with a Christmas album, who knows?

This interview has been condensed and edited.

A version of this article appears in the fall 2018 issue of the Visual Arts Journal.

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