Poe project on tap for Plains
Danielle Switalski
Mystery and the thrill of suspense are in the air, focused not on Halloween but on Thursday, November 5th when Montana Repertory Theatre (Montana Rep) returns to Plains, Montana, with their Educational Outreach Performance of “The Poe Project” by Ron Fitzgerald, a theatrical distillation of the works and times of Edgar Allan Poe. Workshops in the high school will be conducted during the day. The evening production for the public will center on Poe’s enormous efforts to create the mystery story. It has been 160 years since Poe’s death at the young age of 40, and he is still remembered as the “father” of the mystery story. Edgar Allan Poe is one of America’s most beloved classic writers.
Poe is perhaps best remembered for his challenging alliterative poem, “The Raven” or maybe for the lyrical “Annabel Lee.” In any case, mystery
and the fabric of suspense created with the use of everyday language were his unequaled talent.
Still with us are the stories; “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “ A Cask of Amontillado,” the pre-psychiatry, yet familiar terrors of “The Fall of the House of Usher” and the one hailed as the first detective story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Poe’s genius for language was locked in an unhappy and unprosperous life. He died of the effects of alcoholism and cocaine abuse, or as more recent investigations have indicated, perhaps of rabies which was an all too common infection in that time. Whatever it was that caused his sudden and miserable death, it came only days after he had proposed marriage to his own Annabel Lee, a lovely woman in Richmond, Virginia, who would have been his second wife. Even more mysterious were contemporary reports from those who knew him, that he had been sober for at least six months and was rebuilding his life.
Montana Rep’s theatrical presentation of “The Poe Project” was written by the nationally known play- and screen-wright, Ron Fitzgerald, and the evening production, scheduled at 7:00 pm in the high school gym, explores the sources of Poe’s elemental mystery stories which indeed established the genre which leads straight through Agatha Christie’s detectives to the modern mysteries of P.D. James and Mickey Spillane.
Actors, Director, Stage Manager and Scenery Designer are all members of the graduate school of the University of Montana’s School of Theatre and Dance. They will inspire the high school students with workshops during the day and thrill evening theatre goers with the full 50-minute production of “The Poe Project.”
The event is sponsored jointly by Montana Rep, the University of Montana, and by our own Sanders County Arts Council with the help of local businesses. Tickets are $6.00 each and are available in advance at SCAC’s regular ticket outlets at Honeysuckle Natural Foods, Garden, Gift and Floral, and at the First Security Banks in both Plains and Thompson Falls. Tickets will also be sold at the door.