​The Poe Asylum

Productions:
LaPlume, PA, 2018
Scranton, PA, 2016
The Poe Asylum is an immersive theatrical adaptation of short stories and poems by Edgar Allan Poe. Each audience member moves from room to room in this asylum, watching and listening as stories of horror unfold. One patient recounts their imprisonment and torture. A mother calls out for her lost child, only to be answered by an enigmatic raven. Another patient fights with the uncontrollable and irrational desire to commit murder. The audience will have to ponder if these individuals are really patients in a mental asylum, or if they are simply trapped in their own minds. And then comes the greatest question of all: where is hope? 

Re-imagine five of Poe's classics:The Raven, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Black Cat, The Tell-Tale Heart, and The Premature Burial. 

Characters: 

PATIENT 1, a mother who has lost her child
FIGURE, the child's father, or else a raven

PATIENT 2, a sufferer of PTSD
FIGURES, their tormentors

PATIENT 3, an alcoholic 
FIGURE, their wife, or else a black cat

PATIENT 4, a sufferer of paranoid schizophrenia
FIGURES, their internal demons

PATIENT 5, a sufferer of taphophobia
DOCTOR, their doctor, or else their tormentor
DOUBLE, the patient as they were or could have been

Productions

La Plume, PA 2018

Directed by Rachel Luann Strayer for Keystone College

Cast: 
​
Patients - Michael Calabro ("The Black Cat"), Colin Franko ("The Tell-Tale Heart"), Samantha Layne-Perkins ("The Premature Burial"), Dalton Nixon ("The Pit and the Pendulum"), Aleigh Smith ("The Raven")

Figures - Jasmin Cone ("The Black Cat" & "The Tell-Tale Heart"), Timmy Dempsey ("The Raven" & "The Tell-Tale Heart"), Michelle Romano ("The Pit and the Pendulum" & "The Tell-Tale Heart"), Felicity Rudden ("The Pit and the Pendulum" & "The Premature Burial"), Jessica Troy ("The Pit and the Pendulum" & "The Premature Burial")

Hope - Eileen Walsh

Interactive Cast - Laura Doyle, Dana Jackson, Jillian Alyse Kemmerer, Qwintin Krenitsky, Aaron Leety, Karin Mappes, Alex Nebraski, Meg Oyer

Scranton, PA 2016

​Directed by Jeremy J. Kemmerer, Jonathan Strayer, and Rachel Luann Strayer for Ghostlight Productions

Cast: 

Patients - Grace Doolittle ("The Tell-Tale Heart"), Laura Doyle ("The Premature Burial"), KK Gordon ("The Tell-Tale Heart"), Jeremy J. Kemmerer ("The Pit and the Pendulum"), Jillian Alyse Kemmerer ("The Tell-Tale Heart"), Jonathan Strayer ("The Tell-Tale Heart"), Rachel Luann Strayer ("The Raven")

​Figures - Joel Gardoski ("The Premature Burial"), Crista Gaskill ("The Premature Burial"), Dana Jackson ("The Premature Burial"), Julia Risitano ("The Premature Burial"), Luke Sayre ("The Raven"), CSU Acting Students ("The Pit and the Pendulum")

Interactive Cast - Nikki Lucier-Denison, Karin Mappes, Cecilia Sayre