I don’t know about you, but I am very excited for fall this year—warm sweaters, falling leaves, pumpkin-flavored everything, and Edgar Allan Poe. Yes, Edgar Allan Poe! On October 7, it was officially the 160^th anniversary of the death of Philadelphia’s one-and-only master of macabre. Ironically, this year is also the 200^th anniversary of his birth. To celebrate, our client, Brat Productions, has built a 13-room labyrinth of his most famous tales full of the suspense, literature, and violence for which the celebrated poet is infamous, for the world premiere of Haunted Poe.

Dave Johnson as Edgar Allen Poe - image by: Gabriel Bienczycki

To create a truly Poe-worthy experience, Brat has put together a team of note-worthy actors, designers, and consultants including “Philly Poe Guy” Edward Pettit, Barrymore-award winners Bruce Walsh (who gives a terrifying performance of The Black Cat while yielding an axe, yikes!) and the absolutely gorgeous Kim Carson, as well as ex-Eastern State Penitentiary: Terror Behind the Walls designer Brad Helm. Brat has also brought in approximately 4,000, now famous (see the article here!), cockroaches from the Insectarium for that extra-added psychological scare.

Being a lover of the arts, but, admittedly, a big baby as well (I watch scary movies rarely and with the lights on!), I was apprehensive about attending the production, which promises “blood – and ghosts and magic and murder and mayhem.” However, I was pleasantly surprised that, although plenty scary for the thrill-enthusiast, the production is so intriguing and unusually gorgeous as well.

After spending four years working very closely with my college’s small theater company, I am completely in awe of what a huge project this relatively small theater company was not only able to pull off, but execute beautifully, and I am honestly so thrilled to be working on publicity for Haunted Poe!

You don’t have to take my word for it; the whole city is a-buzz about this Halloween season’s most exciting production!

The Philadelphia Inquirer calls Haunted Poe a, “compellingly dark vision of the torments that haunted Poe’s soul,” here.

“Directed with considerable flair by Distefano, Poe has a punk rock sensibility: raw, visceral and roughly poetic,” Says J. Cooper Robb of Philadelphia Weekly. Read the full article here.

Also, you can always check out the video footage on ABC.com featuring the production.

Happy Birthday, Edgar!

This week, everywhere I seem to look, I see Wild Things. The world is gearing up for the release of the much anticipated live-action film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, directed by Spike Jonze. And the excitement is growing here in Philadelphia too. Philly’s own Rosenbach Museum & Library (a Canary client!) is the sole repository of the original artwork of Maurice Sendak, author and illustrator of Where the Wild Things Are and about a gazillion other books.

I love working on publicity for the Rosenbach, especially on projects using materials from the museum’s Sendak collection (which includes over 10,000 pieces). Growing up, we always had a ton of books in the house, including Sendak (thanks Mom!). My favorite copies of Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen and Pierre: A Cautionary Tale in Five Chapters and a Prologue are worn and tattered. I played out my VHS tape of Really Rosie cartoons and scratched up my record of Carol King singing Sendak classics, and my Wild Things stuffed animals have now bit the dust. So for me, at 26 years old, it’s pretty cool to get to work on something I loved so much as a kid, and still do now.

Final drawing for Where the Wild Things Are. Pen and ink, watercolor. © Maurice Sendak, 1963. All rights reserved. Courtesy of the Rosenbach Museum & Library

How did Maurice Sendak’s work come to the Rosenbach Museum & Library? Sendak first met Clive Driver, then Director of the Rosenbach, in 1966 at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Sendak was invited to speak, along with other artists and scholars, at a conference hosted by the library on Beatrix Potter in celebration of the 100th anniversary of her birth. From Clive, Sendak learned that the Rosenbach had one of the best Melville collections in the world, among other artists that he loved, like William Blake, John Tenniel, and George Cruikshank. The relationship was cemented in the early 1970s when Sendak decided to give his pictures to the Rosenbach on deposit, marking the start of the Sendak collection at the Rosenbach.

In a 2007 interview, Sendak said, “Clive and I got to talking and he began to tell me about The Rosenbach and the virtues of The Rosenbach, and I was then looking for a place to give my stuff to, but I didn’t want it to go to a university… Because they were buried in sealed vaults and whoever got to see them? The point of giving something away and then treating it as it were death of the family was hardly what I was looking forward to. So I was saying where was a place where people could, if they wanted to, make an appointment and see the pictures. So Clive would say, that’s just what we do… They had people I love, artists I love. They had the Alice illustrations….I remember I would lay in The Doctor’s room – Dr. Rosenbach – and Clive would bring me in some drawings for a French novel by Fragonard and they would be in the bed with me. And there was a big fur, animal fur blanket, and I used to lay under it with my Fragonards all around. Hey – that was living! Of course, they took it all back in the morning, that’s the way of life. So anyways, I concluded that that’s where I wanted to be and that’s where it began.”

Watch Sendak talk about his childhood, love of movies and storytelling as a youth, in an interview featured in a DVD by the Rosenbach below. Stay tuned for the Rosenbach’s new website, designed by Canary! Until then, visit www.rosenbach.org and check out the museum’s current Sendak-themed exhibitions and events! “Let the wild rumpus start!” - Emaleigh

Interview clip from the DVD “There’s a Mystery There: Sendak on Sendak: A Retrospective in Words and Pictures.”