Charleston Stage: Nevermore Curriculum Guide Nevermore Education Guide Page 1 Charleston Stage: Nevermore Curriculum Guide Page 2 Setting The Stage Credits Book written by Julian Wiles Directed by Julian Wiles Set Design by Ken Barnett Costume Design by Barbara Young Lighting Design by Paul Hartmann Theatre Etiquette Discuss proper audience behavior with your students. While applause, laughter, and reaction, when appropriate, are appreciated and anticipated, unnecessary noise or movement can distract the actors and audience members, while also affecting the quality of the performance. It is very important that students understand how their behavior can affect a live performance. You, the teacher, and other adult chaperones for your group are responsible for your student’s behavior. We ask that the chaperones sit among the students rather than together in a group behind the students. Our ushers will react to disruptions and attempt to quell them. We reserve the right to remove any student causing a distraction from the theatre. When entering the theatre venue please make sure all of your students have name tags with their name and your school’s name. Charleston Stage: Nevermore Curriculum Guide Page 3 MEET THE CREATORS! JULIAN WILES Julian Wiles is the founder and producing artistic director of Charleston Stage Company which, under his leadership, has grown into one of South Carolina's largest arts organizations. Wiles has also made a major commitment to youth education and was awarded the National Youth Theatre Directors Award in 1988. He has received the South Carolina Governor's Award for Excellence and was honored with a Concurrent Resolution from the South Carolina General Assembly for his commitment to education in 1990. A playwright as well as a director, Wiles has six published plays, including FrUiTCaKeS, all of which are performed internationally. His Nevermore! Edgar Allan Poe—The Final Mystery premiered to sold-out houses at Charleston Stage in 1994. Charleston Stage: Nevermore Curriculum Guide Page 4 CHARACTERS Young Poe Edgar Allan Poe Capt’n Reynolds Homer Walker Usher Viscount Valequez Priest Cabin Boy Hopfrog Acolyte Aaron Abrams Inspector Grimke, Prince Prospero, Bartender, Mourner Rusty Jake- Legrand Father Master of Ceremonies Constable Ross Mr. Quary Miguel Synopsis of NEVERMORE Spoiler alert, you may not want to read this before seeing the play. In September of 1847 Edgar Allan Poe is reported to have boarded a steamer in Baltimore Harbor for an overnight voyage to New York City. He never arrived. Five days later, Poe was found delirious on a Baltimore street and died soon thereafter. What transpired over those five missing days has remained forever a mystery... until now. This imaginative play, utilizing the macabre stories and poems of one of America's most celebrated writers, ponders what might have happened to him on the dreary nightmare voyage at the end of his life. Filled with masterful illusions and disappearances. Nevermore! keeps audiences on the edge of their seats from the first curtain to the final denouement. Charleston Stage: Nevermore Curriculum Guide Page 5 Curriculum Connections The facts are these: Edgar Allen Poe did disappear for five days prior to his death, his whereabouts and activities are completely unknown. It is believed he boarded a ship for New York but even that is not absolutely certain. We do know that he was found delirious, wandering the streets of Baltimore. Recognized by an acquaintance, he was taken to a nearby tavern and a doctor friend of Poe’s sent for. The doctor and Poe’s relatives arranged for Poe’s transfer to nearby Washington Hospital. Throughout the night that followed, Poe remained delirious and delusional. Long into the night he called out, over and over again, for someone named “Reynolds”, but no one there knew who that was. Finally, Poe was calmed down. Three days later, after fading in and out of consciousness, but without regaining coherence, he died. His enemies and literary rivals were quick to blame Poe’s drinking on his demise. There is no doubt, Poe had a problem with alcohol but many scholars believe that, in his last years, Poe was also battling with severe mental illness. After the death of his wife Virginia to tuberculosis, most agree, Poe was severely depressed and never the same again. He did make an effort to stop drinking, even joining the Richmond Sons of Temperance, but soon his was drinking again. Many believe this lead to Poe’s madness although he himself said the drink didn’t make him mad, the madness made him drink. Some scholars have suggested that Poe showed the symptoms of hypo-glycemia, which would explain his low tolerance for alcohol and his delusional behavior at times. Whatever the diagnosis, Poe’s mental condition was certainly severely impaired at the time of his death. Who was the mysterious “Reynolds” to whom Poe called out? Many believe he was Jeremiah Reynolds, a minor Antarctic explorer of the 19th century. Reynolds, like many during this last age of exploration, believed that somewhere in the Antarctic region there was an entrance to the center of the earth, perhaps to a land of paradise. Poe used this theory and the journals Reynolds had written about his Antarctic expeditions in two of his stories. Both his short novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. and Manuscript Found in the Bottle. tell tales of ghostly, ghastly and ultimately ill-fated voyages to the Antarctic. While the inspiration for Poe’s fascination with the Antarctic can be traced to Jeremiah Reynolds there is little solid information as to the identity of Annabel Lee. Poe’s poem, Annabel Lee, was one of the last, perhaps the last poem Poe penned before his death. No one knows the identity of his beloved Annabel Lee, however. Perhaps she is someone biographers have failed to discover. Most likely she was a creature only of Poe’s vivid imagination. Charleston Charleston Stage: Nevermore Curriculum Guide Page 6 author and publisher Mrs. Elizabeth Verner Hamilton, in the Tradd Street Press’s Sullivans Island Edition of The Gold Bug, speculates that perhaps Annabel Lee was a young Charleston belle who became Poe’s first love. Poe was after all, stationed at Sullivans Island when he was only 17, young, impressionable and adventurous. He had run away from home, joined the army under the alias Edgar A. Perry and found himself stationed at Ft. Moultrie on Sullivans Island. If indeed, Annabel Lee was a Charleston girl, this would of course, make Charleston the fabled “kingdom by the sea.” This is all mere speculation, however. But wonderful speculation, so wonderful that I borrowed this premise for Nevermore. One final note. For the past 40 something years, on the anniversary of Poe’s death, a mysterious lady appears at cemetery where Poe is buried. Each year, she appears at midnight and leaves a bottle of cognac and a single white rose on his grave. No one knows the identify of this ghostly visitor. FACTS ABOUT EDGAR ALLAN POE Charleston Stage: Nevermore Curriculum Guide Page 7 o He was born Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809 o The second child of English-born actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and actor David Poe, Jr. o He had an elder brother, William Henry Leonard Poe, and a younger sister, Rosalie Poe. o His father abandoned their family in 1810, and his mother died a year later from consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis). o Poe was then taken into the home of John Allan, a successful Scottish merchant in Richmond, Virginia, who dealt in a variety of goods including tobacco, cloth, wheat, tombstones, and slaves. The Allans served as a foster family and gave him the name "Edgar Allan Poe", though they never formally adopted him. o In 1824 Poe served as the lieutenant of the Richmond youth honor guard as Richmond celebrated the visit of the Marquis de Lafayette. o Poe may have become engaged to Sarah Elmira Royster before he registered at the one-year-old University of Virginia in February 1826 to study languages. The university, in its infancy, was established on the ideals of its founder, Thomas Jefferson. It had strict rules against gambling, horses, guns, tobacco and alcohol, but these rules were generally ignored. Jefferson had enacted a system of student self-government, allowing students to choose their own studies, make their own arrangements for boarding, and report all wrongdoing to the faculty. Poe gave up on the university after a year, and, not feeling welcome in Richmond, especially when he learned that his sweetheart Royster had married Alexander Shelton, he traveled to Boston in April 1827, sustaining himself with odd jobs as a clerk and newspaper writer. o Unable to support himself, on May 27, 1827, Poe enlisted in the United States Army as a private. o Poe's regiment was posted to Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina and traveled by ship on the brig Waltham on November 8, 1827. Charleston Stage: Nevermore Curriculum Guide Page 8 o Poe finally was discharged on April 15, 1829, after securing a replacement to finish his enlisted term for him. Poe traveled to West Point and matriculated as a cadet on July 1, 1830. o Poe secretly married Virginia, his cousin, on September 22, 1835. He was 26 and she was 13, though she is listed on the marriage certificate as being 21. On May 16, 1836, he had a second wedding ceremony in Richmond with Virginia Clemm, this time in public o In June 1840, Poe published a prospectus announcing his intentions to start his own journal, The Stylus. o On January 29, 1845, his poem "The Raven" appeared in the Evening Mirror and became a popular sensation. o One theory, dating from 1872, indicates that cooping – in which unwilling citizens who were forced to vote for a particular candidate were occasionally killed – was the cause of Poe's death. Charleston Stage: Nevermore Curriculum Guide THE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE TALES "The Black Cat" "The Cask of Amontillado" "A Descent into the Maelström" "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" "The Fall of the House of Usher" "The Gold-Bug" "Hop-Frog" "The Imp of the Perverse" "Ligeia" "The Masque of the Red Death" "Morella" "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" "The Oval Portrait" "The Pit and the Pendulum" "The Premature Burial" "The Purloined Letter" "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" o "The Tell-Tale Heart” o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o POETRY o o o o o o o o o o o o o o "Al Aaraaf" "Annabel Lee" "The Bells" "The City in the Sea" "The Conqueror Worm" "A Dream Within a Dream" "Eldorado" "Eulalie" "The Haunted Palace" "To Helen" "Lenore" "Tamerlane" "The Raven" "Ulalume" Page 9 Charleston Stage: Nevermore Curriculum Guide Page 10 OTHER WORKS o o o o o o o Politian (1835) – Poe's only play The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) – Poe's only complete novel "The Balloon-Hoax" (1844) – A journalistic hoax printed as a true story "The Philosophy of Composition" (1846) – Essay Eureka: A Prose Poem (1848) – Essay "The Poetic Principle" (1848) – Essay "The Light-House" (1849) – Poe's last incomplete work Discussion before the Performance All Language Arts completes the following standards: o Developing and using oral communication o Understanding and reading literary texts o Understanding and using informational texts o Building Better vocabulary o Developing written communication o Developing and using research strategies All Social Studies meets the following standards: o Understanding of different life around them and across the world o Understanding of different regions and human systems All Theatre Activities meet the following standards: – Connecting ideas and action – Understanding characters DISCUSSION PROMPTS 1. What do you know about Edgar Allan Poe? Have you read any of his works? 2. Read The Raven or Annabel Lee in class. Discuss themes, symbols, double entendres, and other literary devices within. 3. Read 3 or 4 of Edgar Allan Poe’s tales and draw comparisons between them. Charleston Stage: Nevermore Curriculum Guide Page 11 Activities After the Performance DISCUSSION PROMPTS 1. What were aspects of the set, costumes, sound, lighting, or props that helped set the mood and establish the setting of the play? Did the “design” team do a good job in making the story believable? 2. What were some of the special effects used in the show? How do you think the players made those special effects happen…how did they do it?! 3. In a mystery or thriller, it is sometimes hard to figure out who are the “good guys” and the “bad guys.” Who are the trustworthy characters in this piece and who have questionable motives? ACTIVITIES 4. What were aspects of the set, costumes, sound, lighting, or props that you would change? Using drawings or a diorama, create a set for Nevermore. What kinds of props or set pieces would you add to make it more believable or understandable? 5. Write a new ending! Break into groups and write a different ending. Then, assign roles to classmates, write a script, and act out your new ending! Resources BOOKS o The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume 1 and 2 o Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe o The Complete Short Stories of Edgar Allan Poe And many more found on Amazon.com and at your local library. FILMS Edgar Allan Poe Classic Compilation: The Cask of Amontillado and the Tell Tale Heart (2008) The Tomb of Ligeia / An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe (Midnite Movies Double Feature) S Charleston Stage: Nevermore Curriculum Guide Page 12 Edgar Allan Poe - 11 Poe Tales Hosted By Christopher Lee Biography - Edgar Allan Poe: The Mystery of Edgar Allen Poe (A&E DVD Archives) (2004) Edgar Allan Poe's The Pit And The Pendulum Starring Lorielle New, Stephen Hansen, Bart Voitila, et al. (2010) WEB RESOURCES WIKIPEDIA PAGE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe Poe Museum Site: http://www.poemuseum.org/index.php The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore http://www.eapoe.org/ Poets.org http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/130
© Copyright 2026 Paperzz