Dispatch from the Matrix: Lovecraft Halloween Theater in Seattle Pacific Northwest

Here’s what promises to be a great show for the Halloween season. It’s a dark melange of three of Lovecraft’s pieces adapted as works of theater.

The press release pretty much says it all. I’ve excerpted a piece below.

Belltown’s own Open Circle Theater is please to present MADNESS OUT OF TIME, the theater’s 8th annual installment of horror from the master of the macabre, H.P. Lovecraft – running October 9 thru November 14, 2009.

Based on Lovecraft’s novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, local playwrights Dustin Engstrom (In the Kafka Colony, The Center of the Universe) and Ron Sandahl (The Necronomicon, The Colour Out of Space, Arkham) have teamed up to take Lovecraft’s longest work and adapt it for the stage. Set in Providence in 1953, the story follows Charles Ward, an odd young delver into the past. When he uncovers a previously unknown ancestor, Charles is exstatic and tracks down everything he can. As he stumbles upon his ancestor’s notebooks, his discoveries take a darker turn, and Charles retreats to his laboratory. But is it madness or something far worse that now haunts Charles Ward? What happens when you pursue the past, only to find it pursuing you back?

Directed by Gary Zinter (Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf, School of Whoredom), the cast features Elizabeth Adkisson, Brandon Jepson & Lantz Wagner. Sean Branney (Director of the film Call of Cthulhu) has called Open Circle "The foremost adapter of H.P. Lovecraft in the world" and the productions have garnered international press. Don’t be the last of your friends to lose their minds staring into the gaping maw of the audient void. Come see what all the screaming is about.

WHAT: MADNESS OUT OF TIME by H.P. Lovecraft The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
WHEN: October 9 thru November 14 Thu. – Sat. @ 7:30 / Sun. @ 4pm
HOW MUCH: $15 Students/Seniors (with ID): $13 All Thursdays are pay-what-you-can
RESERVATIONS: (206) 382-4250 – or – www.OCTheater.com
WHERE: Open Circle Theater – 2222 Second Ave., 2nd Floor (at Bell St., above Shorty’s)

Here’s a fun video, "Calls for Cthulhu"