This month, Doctuh Mistuh Productions is presenting the regional premiere of the musical play Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe. The show is a good fit for the company, and would've been even if director Michael McKelvey wasn't already a Poe fan. But he's been a fan for years.
"Look, I went through my goth period like everybody else did," he says. "I still wear black most of the time. Poe, Byron, and Whitman were kind of how I became so enamored with literature."
The show is a bit of a unique animal theatrically. It's completely underscored, meaning that the music is constant -- when the performers aren't singing, they're speaking in a kind of poetic, rhythmic style. "It's actually very cool. And really hard." says McKelvey.
While the show is about Poe, it's not a traditional biography. "These are the high points, or low points, in Poe's life," McKelvey says. Poe didn't live the happiest of lives, and The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe covers a lot of the heartbreak in his life. "He faced a lot of death in his time," McKelvey says. "I mean, his dad left home, his mother died, his adoptive mother died... and then his heart was broken by one of his first girlfriends... and then Sissy, who was his cousin, became his child bride, and then she died. So, yeah, he faced a lot."
