Burning Coal Theatre Company Presents PHANTASMAGORIA, OR LET US SEEK DEATH

Burning Coal Theatre Company announces its fundraising production of Phantasmagoria, or Let Us Seek Death by Chana Porter. The performance will occur online on October 31, 2020 at 7:30pm.

Admission requires a $20.00 donation to Burning Coal, which can be made at burningcoal.org or by calling the box office at (919) 834-4001. Recommended for Mature Audiences.

A rainy night in a Genevan castle. Debauched poetry and too much wine. A teenage girl writes a spooky story. Phantasmagoria assembles a swirl of puppetry, biography, and storytelling into a world of ghosts...The dead walk among us.

Chana Porter is an emerging playwright, with plays that have been developed or produced at theaters such as The Flea Theater, La Mama, and The Catastrophic Theater, where she is currently writer-in-residence. She is a recipient of Honorable Mention for the Relentless Prize. Houston Press writes that "Porter's type of risky storytelling is, well... like a lion's roar in an all too often timid jungle." Along with Phantasmagoria, Porter's credits include Beshert, Leap & The Net Will Appear, First Suburb, and many other plays and written works.

Randolph Curtis Rand, the director of the original production at La MaMa, will lead Phantasmagoria, or Let Us Seek Death. At Burning Coal, he has directed (Three Man) Tempest, St. Nicholas, and many others, and is an OBIE award winner. The role of Mary Shelley will be played by Cheleen Sugar, who made her Burning Coal debut in Clare Bayley's The Container. Other actors include AC Donahue (Camelot) as Claire Clairmont/Elizabeth, Lucius Robinson (Twelfth Night) as Lord Byron, Simon Kaplan (The Weir) as Walton, Hope Love (Pentecost) as Professor, Nat Soto (Ashe in Johannesburg) as Asher, and Matthew Hager (Mary's Wedding) as Polidori/Clerval. Actors' Equity member Joel Oramas (Romeo & Juliet) rounds out the cast with his performance as Percy Shelley/Victor Frankenstein.