Reading Edgar Allan Poe’s goosebump-inducing poems and stories in print is creepy enough. But this October, you can see them performed live at two New York City performances. British actor Stephen Smith will perform his rendition of several of Edgar Allan Poe's best blood-curdling pieces this month as part of his One Man Poe series.
— Friday, October 17: See The Tell-Tale Heart and The Pit and the Pendulum at Under St Marks Theater.
— Saturday, October 18: See The Black Cat and The Raven at The Poe Cottage in the Bronx where Poe himself lived in the 1840s.
Smith, of Threedumb Theatre, has long been a Poe fan, recalling reading Poe's work as a child. But it wasn't until the pandemic that he felt compelled to perform The Tell-Tale Heart, a one-man show set in one room that worked well on Zoom and eventually moved to bigger stages. He admired the richness of Poe's language, both for the audience and the actor.
"I don't adapt the stories in any way. I just have memorized 13,000 words of original Poe, and I perform that live on stage," Smith told Time Out. "I like to think that my show is the most faithful theatrical adaptation that you could ever get. It's not adapted; it's exactly what Poe intended but live on stage."