Edgar Allan Poe
A Halloween salon
Tuesday, October 27th, 7pm • Villa Maybeck
We are delighted to welcome actor Robert Sicular, and traditional music performer and songstress Shira Kammen for an evening of the frightfully beautiful poetry and prose of Edgar Allan Poe, and shockingly sublime music and song.
Tickets: $40 pp
Cocktails and sweet treats will be served (tricks optional)
The Mysterious Stranger
In the dead middle of the night, every January 19th, the anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, a Mysterious Stranger, clad all in black, his face obscured, drifts slowly out of the frigid darkness into the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore.
There he lays a half bottle of cognac and three red roses on Poe’s grave, whispers a prayer and vanishes into the gloom. His fidelity to the task has lasted many years and now the time has come to pass the torch to younger blood:
– yours . . .
Thus, to begin . . .
—Mark Polizzotti
The Program
Robert Sicular
— IS —
The Mysterious Stranger
Stories and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Music and mood by Shira Kammen
The Artists
Robert Sicular
Robert Sicular is celebrated as a performer all around the country, far and wide. Theaters where he has appeared include: ACT; the Berkeley, Seattle, South Coast, Saint Louis, and San Jose Repertory Theaters; TheatreWorks; CenterREP; The Oregon, California, San Francisco, and Santa Fe Shakespeare Festivals; Marin Theater Company; Actors Theatre of Louisville; Denver Center Theatre Company; The Round House Theatre in Bethesda, MD; and the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC. Renowned for his interpretations of the classics, Robert has appeared in over 80 productions of Shakespeare’s plays essaying such roles as Hamlet, Brutus, Richard II, Petruchio, Sir Toby Belch, Marc Antony, Malvolio, and the melancholy Jaques, just to name a few. No stranger to contemporary works, he is also delighted to number many world premieres amongst his achievements. On-screen credits include the sci-fi action comedy thriller, Never Die Twice; the Bollywood potboiler, Dil Pardesi Ho Gaya; the role of Dad in Josh Kornbluth’s Love and Taxes; and many years ago, recurring characters on the soap operas, Santa Barbara, General Hospital and the Young and the Restless. He also stars in the web series Dr. Dark Presents.
A native of Berkeley, he is a proud product of Berkeley public schools; and encouraged by loving parents, Robert has been performing in front of live audiences since the tender age of three. After graduating from Berkeley High, he happily attended the University of California and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Robert is a dedicated member of Actors’ Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA, and believes fervently in the power and beauty of the spoken word.
Check out his website at www.robertsicular.com
Shira kammen
Shira Kammen was born in 1961 and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the daughter of a professional violinist, and a singer who is also a scientist. After receiving her music degree from UC Berkeley, Shira studied vielle with Margriet Tindemans, a specialist in early music who has been Shira’s greatest musical influence.
Over the years, Shira has been a member of Ensembles Alcatraz, and Project Ars Nova, and Medieval Strings, and has performed with Sequentia, Hesperion XX, the Boston Camerata, and The King’s Noyse. Recently she founded Class V Music, an ensemble that performs on river rafting trips.
Among other interesting projects, Shira’s playing has been included on television and independent soundtracks, and she has played the medieval fiddle in the soundtrack for the motion picture O, a version of Othello.
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American author, poet, editor, and literary critic. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story, and is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.
Born in Boston, Poe was the second child of two actors. His father abandoned the family in 1810, and his mother died the following year. Thus orphaned, the child was taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia. Although they never formally adopted him, Poe was with them well into young adulthood. Tension developed later as John Allan and Edgar repeatedly clashed over debts, including those incurred by gambling, and the cost of secondary education for the young man. Poe attended the University of Virginia for one semester but left due to lack of money. In 1827 Poe enlisted in the Army under an assumed name. It was at this time his publishing career began, albeit humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to "a Bostonian". Later failing as an officer's cadet at West Point (under his own name) and declaring a firm wish to be a poet and writer, Poe parted ways with John Allan.
Poe switched his focus to prose and spent the next several years working for literary journals and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary criticism. His work forced him to move among several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In Baltimore in 1835, he married Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin. In January 1845 Poe published his poem, "The Raven", to instant success. His wife died of tuberculosis two years after its publication. On October 7, 1849, at age 40, Poe died in Baltimore; the cause of his death is unknown.