Fringe Festival Performances on Friday, September 18; Saturday, September 19; Sunday, September 20 - Multiple Times
1859. Poe was dead to begin with. The dominion of the Red Death grows, infecting the streets of Charles Dickens’s London. Blending and bending the legacies of two literary icons, Illimitable Dominion explores the emergence from isolation into a world reimagined by Poe’s most lethal creation.
Inspired by the 1842 meeting between Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe at the United States Hotel in Philadelphia, Illimitable Dominion speculates a clandestine bond between the writers that would continue long after Poe’s death in 1849. A decade later, Dickens’s charmed career is threatened by whispers of scandal and adultery, but a much more sinister shadow looms over the celebrated writer as Poe’s macabre fiction bleeds onto the pages of the Dickensian canon.
Performed at the historic West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Illimitable Dominion is staged as a living graphic novel where brief vignettes become the panels and blackouts become the gutters of human imagination between the frames. This socially distanced, immersive experience takes audiences through one of three distinct narratives following the “creation” of the famed ghosts from A Christmas Carol.
Limited to 12 audience members per performance, Illimitable Dominion is performed outdoors and in accordance with City of Philadelphia safety guidelines with labeled 6 foot minimum distance markers between audience members from different households and minimum 20 foot distances from performers. Audiences are expected to wear masks for the duration of the show. Sanitizing materials and masks will be provided on site to those who need them.
Illimitable Dominion runs approximately 50 minutes without intermission. For more information and tickets, visit forgottenlore.org or fringearts.com.
- Friday, September 18 - 8:00PM
- Friday September 18 - 9:30PM
- Saturday, September 19 - 8:00PM
- Saturday, September 19 - 9:30PM
- Sunday, September 20 - 8:00PM
- Sunday, September 20 - 9:30PM