Red-Eye to Havre de Grace
“This exquisite show is among the most original musical theater works I’ve seen in years.” —New York Times
Theater magician Thaddeus Phillips teams up with the Minneapolis-based musical duo Wilhelm Bros. & Co. (Jeremy and David Wilhelm) to create a visually striking and sonically complex action-opera centered on the odd details surrounding Edgar Allan Poe’s mysterious last days. Set in September 1849, the playfully humorous yet dark RED-EYE to HAVRE de GRACE follows Poe on his last lecture tour from Virginia to New York, focusing on a stop in Maryland. There a train conductor saw Poe, wearing a strangers clothes, headed south just a few days before his death. Using altered perspectives and ingenious stagecraft, this wildly inventive work is informed by 19th-century train routes, historical accounts, and Poe’s letters to his mother-in-law to create a spellbinding sketch of a man you soon realize you know little about.