Quoth the Raven
QUOTH THE RAVEN
Inspired by the work of Edgar Allan Poe and the fact that our Advanced Drama production was set to open on Halloween, I created this piece to thrill the audience. We had seen The Woman in Black in London, the previous summer, combined with the brief sensory experiment we did in 2Be?, the students wanted to actually try and scare the audience. I turned to Theatre of the Macabre and Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol. Drawing on a number of his stories, I created a linear play that took Poe through his works as if they were the final delusional confessions of a dying man. I tied each story to a historical point in his actual timeline, he relieves the actions of his last past as his stories unfold around him as he is haunted by the ghost of his love and the ravens of madness.
Design concept: I created a giant shadow wall out of opaque plexi glass. We used shadow puppets that would squirt liquid blood against the wall while the light illuminate its dripping paths. We used projections, masks, darkness, sounds effects, and special effects to create a 360 degree visceral experience.
