Alley Cat Players

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POE-ETRY AND GHOSTS

He is possibly one of the greatest and unhappiest of American poets. A man with the ability to build a tone of foreboding by subtly stroking our consciousness with a rustle here, a tapping there, perhaps the beating of a hideous heart. Edgar Allen Poe died over 150 years ago, but his knack for causing chills continues to this day.

Alley Cat Players offer Bay area folks a special treat this Halloween season with a double performance event that involves a reading of the macabre poetry of Poe by Steve Mountan, performed in character as the author.

Also planned is a Readers' Theater presentation, a cross between a reading and a full-out production. For this particular event, the players present Apparition: An Uneasy Play of the Underknown by contemporary dramatist Anne Washburn, which weaves together an assortment of supernatural tales: actors portraying the witches in Macbeth take a head count and realize they are one too many; demons appear in a suburban backyard; and a couple in the attic are uncertain if they are alive or dead.

7-8:30 p.m. Mon., Oct. 24, St. Petersburg Main Library, 3745 Ninth Ave. N., St . Petersburg; and 7-8:30 p.m. Tues., Oct. 25, Seminole Heights Library, 4711 Central Ave., Tampa. For more information, visit www.alleycatplayers.org or call 813-231-8478.

This article appears in Oct 19-25, 2005.