Vagabond Theater Resurrects Horror Writers Poe, HP Lovecraft

When Edgar Allan Poe and HP Lovecraft heard that playwright Eric Sanders was adapting fellow horror writer Algernon Blackwood's supernatural tale, THE WENDIGO for the stage, they just had to come back from beyond the grave to see it. Thanks to the magic and mystery of Friday the 13th, they can!

Following the 8pm performance of THE WENDIGO on Friday, February 13, classic horror writers Edgar Allan Poe and HP Lovecraft will be joining playwright Eric Sanders and Director Matthew Hancock for a special after show talkback with the audience. Mr. Poe will also be doing a special reading of his beloved classic "The Raven" and Mr. Lovecraft will be reading his well-known story "The Outsider". Come get your picture taken with two of the all-time finest authors of supernatural fiction!

Lovecraft, who died unheralded and penniless at 47, was gracious in accepting the opportunity: "I, Howard Phillips Lovecraft of Providence, Rhode Island, am deeply honored and humbled to be reanimated alongside such titans of the macabre as Edgar Allan Poe, to whom 'we owe the modern horror-story in its final and perfected state,' and Algernon Blackwood, 'the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere.'"

Poe, who also died penniless and alcoholic at 40, was more reticent with his endorsement: "While my life was marred by a series of dark and ominous events, I swear that I never dreamed of this final shame: being resurrected two hundred years later, only to be forced to share the stage with a handful of half-competent followers."

Blackwood, who died at 82 after a long and successful career, sought to unite his predecessor, Edgar Allan Poe, and his protégé, H.P. Lovecraft, "My boys, I entreat you to come to the Medicine Show Theatre and provoke today's audiences with the same spectre of terror that you so arduously pursued in your all-too-short lives!"

THE WENDIGO: Witness the Resurrection is produced by The Vagabond Theatre Ensemble as part of their Cabin Fever Festival in association with Radiotheatre and their year long celebration of Edgar Allan Poe, Sundays With Poe. Tickets to this very special event are $18, which includes the 8pm performance of THE WENDIGO, special after show talkback, and open bar.
THE WENDIGO produced by Vagabond Theatre Ensemble, plays at the Medicine Show Theatre in the Ensemble Studio Theater Building (549 West 52nd Street, 3rd Floor) February 5-28, Thursday-Saturday at 8pm and Sunday matinees February 8 & 22 at 3pm with special performances Monday, February 9 & Wednesday, February 25 at 8pm. Tickets ($10) are available online at www.SmartTix.com or by calling 212-868-4444.

SUNDAYS WITH POE presented by Radiotheatre is performed at UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place), every last Sunday of the month at 2pm. Tickets ($18) are available by calling Smarttix at 212-868-4444 or online at www.horseTRADE.info

Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) was one of the most influential and mysterious writers of the twentieth century. His works have had a profound impact on everyone from Stephen King to comic books to M. Night Shyamalan and The Blair Witch Project, but his name has been lost to the annals of history. Blackwood's prime interests were human psychology, the mystical and the supernatural. He explored in profound detail the effects that both real and 'perceived' extraordinary events have on the frail human psyche. A deeply spiritual man who rejected the simplicity of Christianity at an early age, Blackwood sought to evoke "spiritual terror" through his stories, to strike at the very core of what makes us human: how we define our universe and our place within it. He sought to terrify, but even more expressly, he sought to astound. The sensation of awe factors heavily throughout his life's work; he viewed the world through a lens of astonishing innocence and objectivity, often personifying places and supernatural phenomena just as vividly as his human characters. According to fellow horror legend H.P. Lovecraft, Blackwood reigns supreme as "the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere."

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 - October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short-story writer, editor and literary critic and is best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre. Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career. Poe switched his focus from poetry to prose and spent several years working for literary journals and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary criticism. His work forced him to move between several cities, including New York City. In Baltimore in 1835, he married his 13-year-old cousin. In January 1845, Poe published his poem "The Raven" to instant success. His wife died of tuberculosis two years later. On October 7, 1849, at age 40, Poe died in Baltimore; the cause of his death is unknown and has been attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, and tuberculosis. Poe and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world. His work appears throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 - March 15, 1937) was an American author of horror, fantasy, and science fiction, known then simply as weird fiction. Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror; the idea that life is incomprehensible to human minds and that the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fiction featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Christian humanism. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality. Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades, and he is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe. Stephen King has called Lovecraft "the twentieth Century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale."

www.TheVagabondTheatreEnsemble.com
www.radiotheatreNYC.com

 

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