Posted on Oct 27, 2023
Edgar Allan Poe's macabre masterpieces find a home in Kansas City's historic cemetery
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To start the Halloween season, The Coterie Theater is bringing Gothic horror performances back to Union Cemetery, the state’s oldest public graveyard and the final resting place of many Kansas City founders.
A small crowd gathered Saturday evening, sitting on blankets and folding chairs at sunset on a hillside in Union Cemetery. The trees were tinged with orange and red as actor R.H. Wilhoit stepped out onto a grassy field between the graves to recite the work of American horror master Edgar Allen Poe.
Though he didn't break character until the end of the show, Wilhoit said performing Poe’s works in Missouri’s oldest public cemetery adds an eerie layer to each performance.
“Respectfully, we are surrounded by thousands of dead bodies,” he said of the site. “We perform in front of a holding vault, which is where they stacked dead bodies when it was too cold to create graves."
Wilhoit is leading The Coterie Theatre’s production of "Electric Poe," now in its fourth year. This time, Wilhoit has adapted three Poe works, including the poem “Annabel Lee” and short story “The Cask of Amontillado.”
A small crowd gathered Saturday evening, sitting on blankets and folding chairs at sunset on a hillside in Union Cemetery. The trees were tinged with orange and red as actor R.H. Wilhoit stepped out onto a grassy field between the graves to recite the work of American horror master Edgar Allen Poe.
Though he didn't break character until the end of the show, Wilhoit said performing Poe’s works in Missouri’s oldest public cemetery adds an eerie layer to each performance.
“Respectfully, we are surrounded by thousands of dead bodies,” he said of the site. “We perform in front of a holding vault, which is where they stacked dead bodies when it was too cold to create graves."
Wilhoit is leading The Coterie Theatre’s production of "Electric Poe," now in its fourth year. This time, Wilhoit has adapted three Poe works, including the poem “Annabel Lee” and short story “The Cask of Amontillado.”
Edgar Allan Poe's macabre masterpieces find a home in Kansas City's historic cemetery
Posted from kcur.org
Theater
Kansas City
Civil War
Posted 6 mo ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."Death by electoral misadventure
According to the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site, the writer died under mysterious circumstances in Baltimore, on Election Day 1840.
Many have speculated on the cause of his death, and one theory suggests Poe was a victim of “cooping,” a form of voter fraud during the 19th century.
“A lot of people don't know that the end of his life actually kind of played out as a Poe story,” Wilhoit said. “Poe was found incoherent on a bench in Baltimore in somebody else's clothes, repeating the name over and over again: Reynolds, Reynolds, Reynolds.”
Cooping victims were kidnapped by gangs of thugs at the behest of political party bosses, drugged or forced to drink alcohol, then disguised multiple times so they could vote repeatedly for a particular candidate.
“Politicians would liquor up the town drunks, put them in different clothes again and again and have them just vote, over and over and over and over and over,” Wilhoit said.
The fraud makes a sad ending for the author of supernatural horror, Wilhoit said.
“For a man that pined so much, it really breaks my heart that he wasn't surrounded by the people he loved,” he said.
In Poe’s 1846 short story "The Cask of Amontillado,” Wilhoit, as Montresor, takes revenge on a friend who has insulted him."...
..."Death by electoral misadventure
According to the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site, the writer died under mysterious circumstances in Baltimore, on Election Day 1840.
Many have speculated on the cause of his death, and one theory suggests Poe was a victim of “cooping,” a form of voter fraud during the 19th century.
“A lot of people don't know that the end of his life actually kind of played out as a Poe story,” Wilhoit said. “Poe was found incoherent on a bench in Baltimore in somebody else's clothes, repeating the name over and over again: Reynolds, Reynolds, Reynolds.”
Cooping victims were kidnapped by gangs of thugs at the behest of political party bosses, drugged or forced to drink alcohol, then disguised multiple times so they could vote repeatedly for a particular candidate.
“Politicians would liquor up the town drunks, put them in different clothes again and again and have them just vote, over and over and over and over and over,” Wilhoit said.
The fraud makes a sad ending for the author of supernatural horror, Wilhoit said.
“For a man that pined so much, it really breaks my heart that he wasn't surrounded by the people he loved,” he said.
In Poe’s 1846 short story "The Cask of Amontillado,” Wilhoit, as Montresor, takes revenge on a friend who has insulted him."...
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