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Oct 1612 min read

POE: An Evening of Mystery and the Macabre, The Program

Updated: Oct 19


and

 The Hermitage

Present

POE

 An Evening of Mystery and the Macabre

October 19, 2024

at The Hermitage, 335 Franklin Turnpike, Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ


Based on Writings by and a Memoir about Edgar Allan Poe

Adapted and Directed by Frank Farrell

Music Composed and Sound Effects by Ben Masterton

Performed by Storytellers: Ginny S. Crooks, Lee DeCecco,

Erwin J. Guerrero, Haley Karlich and Eric Schuster


Spoken and Sung

Stories, Poems and Scenes from a Play


Story: The Cask of Amontillado

Recording and Sound Effects by Ben Masterton


Story: An Excerpt from William Wilson


Poem: To Helen

With Music by Ben Masterton


Play: Politian (an incomplete play by Poe)


Story: The Tell-Tale Heart

          With Sound Effects by Ben Masterton


Poem: The Raven


Poem: Annabel Lee

With Music by Ben Masterton


Five Monologues by Poe:

The Black Cat

The Fall of the House of Usher

Hop-Frog

The Pit and the Pendulum

The Murders in the Rue Morgue


Throughout the Evening the Storytellers sometimes read from the Memoir of Poe (1874) by John H. Ingram.


All Storytellers are Memoir Readers, but they also perform…


Eric Schuster - Storyteller 1 – The Tell-Tale Heart Narrator, The Black Cat Monologue

Lee DeCecco - Storyteller 2 – Fortunato in The Cask of Amontillado, Mrs. Clemm, To Helen, Jacinta in Politian, Police Officer in The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, The Pit and the Pendulum Monologue

Ginny S. Crooks - Storyteller 3 – William Wilson, Lalage in Politian, Police Officer in The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, Hop-Frog Monologue

Haley Karlich - Storyteller 4 – Poe, The Cask of Amontillado Narrator, Police Officer in The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, Anabel Lee, The Fall of the House of Usher Monologue

Erwin J. Guerrero - Storyteller 5 - Mrs. Whitman, Politian in Politian, Old Man in The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, The Murders in the Rue Morgue Monologue

 


WHO’S WHO IN

POE: An Evening of Mystery and the Macabre

 

Poe Bio taken from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




Edgar Allan Poe (né Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, author, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism and Gothic fiction in the United States, and of American literature. Poe was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story, and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre, as well as a significant contributor to the emerging genre of science fiction. He is the first well-known American writer to earn a living by writing alone, which resulted in a financially difficult life and career.

 

Short stories

Poetry

 

Other works

 

JOHN HENRY INGRAM (1842 – 1916) Memoir of Poe author was an English biographer and editor with a special interest in Edgar Allan Poe. His family lived at Stoke Newington, recollections of which appear in Poe's works. He dedicated himself to the resurrection of Poe's reputation, maligned by the dubious memoirs of Rufus Wilmot Griswold;* he published the first reliable biography of the author and a four-volume collection of his works. Beginning in 1874, his sympathetic memoir of Poe began to replace the malicious one that had been written by R. W. Griswold. Although it had intermittent competition from memoirs written by W. F. Gill, R. H. Stoddard, E. L. Didier, and others, Ingram's memoir was the one most widely reprinted, appearing in various forms throughout the remainder of the 19th century.


The Works of Edgar Allan Poe (The Ingram Edition) (1874-1875)

  • Volume I: Memoir & Tales (First printed in November 1874, advertised as early as October 16, 1874)

  • Volume II: Tales — Continued (First printed in December 1874, advertised as early as October 31, 1874)

  • Volume III: Poems and Essays, including Eureka, Marginalia, etc., etc. (First printed in January 1875, advertised as early as January 9, 1875)

  • Volume IV: Autography, Criticism, and Index (First printed in February 1875, advertised as early as February 13, 1875)

 




GINNY S. CROOKS (Storyteller 3) is thrilled to be in this production!  A lifelong Poe devotee, she has visited the Poe home in Baltimore, Maryland, and performed dramatic readings of both The Telltale Heart and The Raven.  Ginny has played leading roles in Death of a Salesman, The Glass Menagerie, Night of the Iguana; Love, Loss and What I Wore; and Wit, among others.  Online, she has appeared in The Rogue Theatre Festival three times:  In Canterbury Sextet as The Wife of Bath, in Capriccio Radio as cantankerous classical radio announcer Lydia, and in The Way Home as concerned mom Evelyn.  Favorite musical roles include the title role in Mame, Delores the waitress in Working, The Homeless Woman in A New Brain, and Dr. Charlotte in Falsettos.  Recent roles include Mme. De Rosemonde in Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Edward Carson in Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde.  Ginny also performs in one-woman shows about civil rights activist Virginia Durr and educator Julia Tutwiler. With her husband Stephen Crooks, she performs an original compilation of the letters of John and Abigail Adams. ginny.loggins@gmail.com

 

 


LEE DECECCO (Storyteller 2) is a New Jersey based actor from the Boston area. They are very excited to be participating in this production of Poe: An Evening of Mystery and Macabre. Lee graduated with a BFA in Acting from Montclair State University and has been involved in productions in the New Jersey area. Lee has appeared in the online improv show Zlurp Zlorp as multiple characters. Most recently, they appeared in Walt Kelly’s Songs of the Pogo in NYC and as Lunch in Tin Cat Shoes at Nutley Little Theatre; and they appeared as many Shakespearean characters in Shakespeare’s Ladies at Tea and Shakespeare’s Deaths with the First Flight Theatre Company as part of the Little Shakespeare Festival in NYC.

 

 

 


FRANK FARRELL (Adaptor & Director) recently produced and directed Walt Kelly’s Songs of the Pogo as part of the New York City Fringe Festival. He was an actor in Chicago for 40 years receiving four Joseph Jefferson acting nominations and recently returned to NYC where he was born. While in Chicago he directed and produced plays for the Free Shakespeare Theatre Company, Temporary Theatre, Shakespeare’s Herd, Steppenwolf Theater, Raven Theatre, Equity Library Theater Chicago, the North Lakeside Players and Theatre-Hikes. Frank has formed six theater companies along the way including the Free Shakespeare Theatre Company, Chicago’s first year-round Shakespeare theatre company, Theatre-Hikes in Chicago and, in Grand Haven, Michigan, the Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company.  In NYC he wrote, directed and produced Forgotten Soldiers from Our Forgotten War for the seventh theatre company he formed, the First Flight Theatre Company.  For First Flight he also coordinated several stage readings of Maxwell Anderson’s plays in New York City, New Jersey and Chicago and directed and produced 2022’s production of Maxwell Anderson’s play Valley Forge.  His Zoom film In the Garden of Live Flowers recently won Best Biopic at the Green Academy Awards Film Festival. With First Flight in July, he directed his adaptation of Little Women. In NYC he recently produced Hamlet on the Run at the Tank and produced and directed Tongs and Bones Shakespeare at the Theater for the New City. He has published several books including Off Stage with Barbra Harris, Forgotten Soldiers from Our Forgotten War, four plays by Maxwell Anderson What Price Glory, First Flight, The Buccaneer, and Outside Looking In, and his adaptation of Little Women; all available at Amazon.com.

 




ERWIN J. GUERRERO (Storyteller 5) is a theatre artist who holds a B. A. In Theater Studies from Montclair State University. Erwin has participated in many shows within the New Jersey/New York area; most recently as Noel Gruber in StageWorks’ rendition of Ride the Cyclone. They feel incredibly fortunate to be able to perform in this beautiful historic museum and to collaborate with such a talented group of people.

 

 

 










HALEY KARLICH (Storyteller 4) is a performer of live theatre, TV & film. Past performances with First Flight include Amy (Little Women), Bobby (Saturday’s Children), Desdemona (Shakespeare’s Ladies at Tea), & Fight Captain for Shakespeare’s Deaths. With FFP in NYC Haley was seen this past spring as Cleo in Walt Kelly’s Songs of the Pogo. Recent credits include St. Jimmy in American Idiot at Arthur F. Couch PAC, May in Olivia Brennan’s DEVOUR (“Best Actress Award” Winner at Brightside Tavern Film Festival ‘24), Amanda in Investigation Discoveries’ Mean Girl Murders (S2E3), Pepper in Nutley Little Theatre’s Tin Cat Shoes, & Stella in Tiny Viking Production’s The Ghost Light. She’s an experienced director, vocalist, combat & voiceover artist; appearing throughout the Radio Repertory Company of America’s Anne Manx series, as well as dramas produced by Cape Swoosh Productions.


 



BEN MASTERTON (Musical Composer and Sound Effects) has composed and arranged music for dozens of Shakespeare productions in Chicago with the Shakespeare Festival of Chicago, Free Shakespeare, and Body Politic, including Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, Hamlet, The Winter's Tale, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Twelfth Night, Merchant of Venice and All's Well That Ends Well. Other favorite productions include The Lennon Play, Dagon, The Lorenzaccio Story, A Dorothy Parker Revue, Dear Brutus, The Songs of the Pogo Podcast (with Frank Farrell), The Imaginary Invalid, The Successful Life of 3, The Snow Queen, The Crucible and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Raven Theater), Three Sisters (Commons Theater), and The Enchanted (Chicago Waldorf School). He was co-producer and musical director for Walt Kelly’s Songs of the Pogo performed as part of April’s New York City Fringe Festival. Ben has written over a hundred songs and currently resides in Gainesville, Florida.

 

 

 


ERIC SCHUSTER (Storyteller 1) has most recently appeared on stage in productions of: Tuesdays with Morrie as Mitch; I Never Sang For My Father as Gene; Nice Girl as Donny; The Crucible as John Proctor; The Exonerated as Kerry Max Cook; All My Sons as Chris Keller; The War of the Worlds as Orson Welles/Pierson; and Of Mice and Men as Carlson. He has worked on several feature and independent films shot in the New York metropolitan area and has appeared in television shows for Travel Channel, Investigation Discovery, PBS, Showtime and HBO.

  

 

*Griswold's Memoir

Immediately after Poe's death, his literary rival Rufus Wilmot Griswold wrote a slanted high-profile obituary under a pseudonym, filled with falsehoods that cast Poe as a lunatic, and which described him as a person who "walked the streets, in madness or melancholy, with lips moving in indistinct curses, or with eyes upturned in passionate prayers, (never for himself, for he felt, or professed to feel, that he was already damned)".

The long obituary appeared in the New York Tribune, signed "Ludwig" on the day that Poe was buried in Baltimore. It was further published throughout the country. The obituary began, "Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it." "Ludwig" was soon identified as Griswold, an editor, critic, and anthologist who had borne a grudge against Poe since 1842. Griswold somehow became Poe's literary executor and attempted to destroy his enemy's reputation after his death.


Griswold wrote a biographical article of Poe called "Memoir of the Author", which he included in an 1850 volume of the collected works. There he depicted Poe as a depraved, drunken, drug-addled madman and included Poe's letters as evidence.] Many of his claims were either lies or distortions; for example, it is seriously disputed that Poe was a drug addict. Griswold's book was denounced by those who knew Poe well,[87] including John Neal, who published an article defending Poe and attacking Griswold as a "Rhadamanthus, who is not to be bilked of his fee, a thimble-full of newspaper notoriety". Griswold's book nevertheless became a popularly accepted biographical source. This was in part because it was the only full biography available and was widely reprinted, and in part because readers thrilled at the thought of reading works by an "evil" man. Letters that Griswold presented as proof were later revealed as forgeries.

 

 

POE’S INFLUENCE

Horror author and historian H. P. Lovecraft was heavily influenced by Poe's horror tales, dedicating an entire section of his long essay, "Supernatural Horror in Literature", to his influence on the genre.[124] In his letters, Lovecraft described Poe as his "God of Fiction."  Lovecraft's earlier stories express a significant influence from Poe. A later work, At the Mountains of Madness, quotes him and was influenced by The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Lovecraft also made extensive use of Poe's unity of effect in his fiction.[128] Alfred Hitchcock once said, "It's because I liked Edgar Allan Poe's stories so much that I began to make suspense films". Many references to Poe's works are present in Vladimir Nabokov's novels.



 



Richard Width, Zander Kirby and Karen Eterovich as they appeared in the First Flight Theatre Company’s outdoor production of Maxwell Anderson’s play Valley Forge in 2022

 

FIRST FLIGHT THEATRE COMPANY is a not-for-profit company founded by Frank Farrell and a group of actors in 2018 and is devoted to presenting the plays of 20th century American playwright Maxwell Anderson as well as other playwrights who instill poetry in their writing. The company has performed live staged readings of Anderson’s plays in New Jersey, New York City and Chicago including Valley Forge, Elizabeth the Queen, Mary of Scotland, Sea-Wife, The Masque of Queens, White Desert, The Eve of St. Mark and Saturday’s Children. During the recent pandemic, First Flight presented play readings on Zoom for the public featuring actors from all over the United States and England. Productions streamed included Maxwell Anderson’s one-act plays The Feast of Ortolans, Second Overture, The Miracle of the Danube and Letter to Jackie. Also streamed were A Vampire Kiss in the Plague of 1666 written by James Fitzmaurice, which went on to win many awards on the film festival circuit; Salvador, a play about Salvador Dalí by Richard Young, another film festival winner; and a streaming version of Anderson’s first Broadway production White Desert. Post pandemic the company presented at The Hermitage in New Jersey outdoor productions of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Maxwell Anderson’s Valley Forge and a third reprise of Dickens by Candlelight: A Christmas Carol. For Earth Day in April of 2023 the First Flight Theatre Company presented streaming performances of In the Garden of Live Flowers, a play about Rachel Carson, which went on to be a winner at the Green Academy Award Film Festival. In June 2023 First Flight’s production of Little Women at The Hermitage was a well-attended outdoor success. In August 2023 it presented the double bill Shakespeare’s Ladies at Tea and Shakespeare’s Deaths as part of FRIGID’s Little Shakespeare Festival in NYC. In September 2023 the Chicago branch of First Flight presented a staged reading of Anderson’s Saturday’s Children. In October 2023 at The Hermitage in New Jersey and at the UNDER St. Marks Theater in NYC the company produced the one-woman play Mina based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. In November 2023 First Flight again presented a staged reading of Saturday’s Children this time at the Under St. Marks Theater in NYC. In addition, the company and the Instant Shakespeare Company joined forces presenting play readings at New York City’s various public libraries including Anderson’s White Desert and Sea-Wife and in December 2023, First Flight presented a public reading of Maxwell Anderson’s 1924 play What Price Glory. First Flight recently published Maxwell Anderson’s plays What Price Glory, First Flight, The Buccaneer and Outside Looking In and Frank Farrell’s adaptation of Little Women, all available at Amazon.com.

 


is devoted to presenting the plays of 20th century American playwright Maxwell Anderson as well as other playwrights who instill poetry in their writing. His favorite writers were Shakespeare and John Keats.


For more about First Flight visit www.firstflighttheatreco.com


SPECIAL THANKS: Andrea Kircher, Christine Blaylock and Julie Zier at The Hermitage.

      

OUR 2024 DONORS: David Cantor, Pamela Coombe, Victoria Devany, Andrea Kircher, Johnny Garcia, Frank Farrell and Jill Linden

 

        

First Flight Theatre Company © 2024




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