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Poe Theatre on the Air

Part radio drama, part podcast, and all Edgar Allan Poe.  A new spine-tingling play for your ears every month, adapted from America’s most famous horror and suspense writer.  Gothic frights, by The National Edgar Allan Poe Theatre.

For episodes prior to and including November of 2020 subscribe to our RSS feed.

Poe Theatre on the Air is produced by The National Edgar Allan Poe Theatre and distributed by WYPR.

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Latest Episodes
  • Written by Jade Greene and performed and recorded live at the Poe Room of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, “The Spectacles” is one of Poe’s comedies (yes, he wrote comedies!). In this story, a vain young man changes his name to try to inherit a fortune from a distant relative. He falls in love with a seemingly beautiful woman at the opera, but because he refuses to wear his glasses, he gets mixed up in a case of mistaken identity. Featuring the voices of Adam R. Adkins, Bri Caelleigh, Sarah Bella Joyce, Jade Greene, John Sadowsky, and Alex Zavistovich. Directed by Alex Zavistovich, with original music composition, sound design and production by James D. Watson. Made possible in part by The Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, Creative Baltimore Fund.
  • In this story, the physically disabled “Hop-Frog,” a victim of a war, is made to work for a cruel and brutish dictator. Together with his tiny love Tripetta, Hop-Frog sets the stage for a comeuppance for the king.
  • Set during the Spanish Inquisition, this intense and pulse-pounding radio drama tells the story of an unnamed prisoner forced to choose between several lethal options when sentenced to death.
  • Three years ago, The National Edgar Allan Poe Theatre was invited to take part in a project called “The Media of Mediumship,” with the University of Stirling in Scotland and the University of East Anglia in England. Poe Theatre’s Artistic Director Alex Zavistovich performed in and co-produced a three-part radio drama series written by UEA Professor Richard J. Hand, based on fiction held in the Harry Price Library in the University of London’s Senate House Library.
  • Hear the third and final story in Edgar Allan Poe’s Auguste Dupin trilogy of mysteries! Dupin and his assistant help the Paris police find a stolen letter, which is being used for blackmail at the highest levels of French government.
  • This Halloween special edition of Poe Theatre on the Air features two readings of the works of Edgar Allan Poe: “The Masque of the Red Death” and “Shadow (a Parable).”
  • The second of Poe’s Auguste Dupin detective stories, “The Mystery of Marie Roget” follows Dupin and his biographer as they unravel the case of a missing perfume worker, found dead in the river. Written by James Comtois, and directed by Alex Zavistovich. Music and sound effects by James D. Watson, featuring the voices of Adam R. Adkins, David Hanauer, Jimi Kinstle, Melanie Kurstin, Jennifer Restak, and Alex Zavistovich.
  • Last year The National Edgar Allan Poe Theatre was invited by The Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theatre Festival to adapt for the stage an early and little-known story by Williams, “The Eye That Saw Death.” This is the reading and sound design for Poe Theatre’s movement-based piece.
  • Recorded live at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon, The National Edgar Allan Poe Theatre presents Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” streaming on WYPR just in time for the author’s 215th birthday.
  • Listen to a performance from Baltimore’s Charm City Bronze Handbell Ensemble and a reading of the The Bells by the renowned British actor Helen Atkinson Wood.