Nightfall presents 4 classic Edgar Allan Poe tales for Halloween

Release Date: 9/14/2005. Expired: 10/29/2005

Step inside the mind of a literary genius as he slowly approaches madness when the Gaslight Dinner Theatre presents Nightfall with Edgar Allan Poe on Halloween weekend.

Nightfall with Edgar Allan Poe will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Oct. 28 and 29, in the center’s Performance Hall. Show-only tickets are $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and $7 for children 13 and under. A limited number of dinner-and-show tickets are available for both nights at $27. A buffet dinner will be served at 6:30 p.m. each night in the Gaslight Dinner Theatre.

Senior matinees will be 1 p.m. Fridays, Oct. 14, 21 and 28. Show-only tickets are $10 for patrons 55 and over. A limited number of lunch-and-show tickets are available for each matinee at $17. A buffet lunch will be served at 12 p.m. in the Gaslight Dinner Theatre.

Nightfall with Edgar Allan Poe is being offered as part of The Renaissance Center’s Mind Enriching Theatre (MET) series for fall and is recommended for field trips for students in grades five and up. The play is being presented to the public for the two evening performances on Halloween weekend and three senior matinees in October. The play is not recommended for patrons under 11 years old.

Written by Eric Coble, Nightfall takes the viewer inside the flickering darkness of the mind of Edgar Allan Poe as he tries desperately to convince himself that he’s not mad. The voices of four of Poe’s greatest tales weave through his mind and come alive on stage, embodying the demons that torture the author. As he struggles with his sanity, Poe moves through The Raven, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum and The Tell-Tale Heart in a production the Montgomery (Ala.) Times Daily called “gripping and ghoulish.”

According to Coble, the setting for Nightfall is “in the minds of madmen everywhere.”

Hal Partlow, director of the MET series, directs Nightfall. The cast includes Jason Richards, Bret Wilson, Daniel Bissell, Matthew Romine and Anna Hammonds.

Poe is credited with inventing the detective mystery genre of writing and one of the highest literary honors in the category is the Edgar, awarded by the Mystery Writers of America. But Poe also wrote darker stories of madness and horror that more than 100 years later would be made into movies starring actors like Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff. While Poe never achieved fame or fortune for his writing by the time he died at age 40 in 1849, his work began to gain acclaim when it was cited as an influence by authors like Ambrose Bierce, Robert Chambers and several renowned French writers.

Coble is a member of the Cleveland Play House Playwrights Unit and his plays have been produced Off-Broadway and throughout the United States and Canada. He has been a finalist in the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and the won a Best Screenplay Award from the Ohio Independent Film Festival. Nightfall with Edgar Allan Poe was commissioned by the Cleveland Play House and premiered in the 1999-2000 season.

“Nightfall is a wonderful show for the Halloween weekend,” said Partlow. “Every successful horror writer, from Stephen King to Dean Koontz, owes a great debt to Edgar Allan Poe for defining a way to send shivers down our spines with just his words on the page.”

Because of its limited run, the show is being presented in the 440-seat Performance Hall to allow more opportunities for people to see it. The larger hall also presents opportunities to enhance the performance with special effects that would not be available in the smaller Gaslight Dinner Theatre.

For more information on the Gaslight Dinner Theatre’s production of Nightfall with Edgar Allan Poe, call (615)740-5600. For information on booking a performance for a school field trip, contact Laura Jackson at (615)740-5533 or .

The Renaissance Center is a fine arts and technology education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.

Visit the Theatre page for more about community and professional theatre.

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