Nevermore Study Guide

Charleston Stage: Nevermore Curriculum Guide Page 1

Nevermore

Education Guide


Setting The Stage

Credits

Book written by Julian Wiles

Directed by Julian WilesSet Design by Ken BarnettCostume Design by Barbara YoungLighting Design by Paul Hartmann

Theatre EtiquetteDiscuss proper audience behavior with your students. While applause, laughter, andreaction, when appropriate, are appreciated and anticipated, unnecessary noise ormovement can distract the actors and audience members, while also affecting the qualityof the performance. It is very important that students understand how their behavior canaffect a live performance. You, the teacher, and other adult chaperones for your group areresponsible for your student’s behavior. We ask that the chaperones sit among thestudents rather than together in a group behind the students. Our ushers will react todisruptions and attempt to quell them. We reserve the right to remove any student causinga distraction from the theatre. When entering the theatre venue please make sure all ofyour students have name tags with their name and your school’s name.


MEET THE CREATORS!JULIAN WILES

Julian Wiles is the founder and producing artistic directorof Charleston Stage Company which, under hisleadership, has grown into one of South Carolina's largestarts organizations. Wiles has also made a majorcommitment to youth education and was awarded theNational Youth Theatre Directors Award in 1988. He hasreceived the South Carolina Governor's Award forExcellence and was honored with a ConcurrentResolution from the South Carolina General Assembly forhis commitment to education in 1990. A playwright as wellas a director, Wiles has six published plays, includingFrUiTCaKeS, all of which are performed internationally.His Nevermore! Edgar Allan Poe—The Final Mysterypremiered to sold-out houses at Charleston Stage in1994.


CHARACTERS

Young PoeEdgar Allan PoeCapt’n ReynoldsHomer WalkerUsherViscountValequezPriestCabin BoyHopfrogAcolyteAaron AbramsInspector Grimke,Prince Prospero,Bartender,MournerRustyJake- LegrandFatherMaster of CeremoniesConstable RossMr. QuaryMiguel

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 BaltimoreHarbor for an overnight voyage to New York City. He never arrived. Five days later, Poe wasfound delirious on a Baltimore street and died soon thereafter. What transpired over those fivemissing days has remained forever a mystery... until now. This imaginative play, utilizing themacabre stories and poems of one of America's most celebrated writers, ponders what mighthave happened to him on the dreary nightmare voyage at the end of his life. Filled withmasterful illusions and disappearances. Nevermore! keeps audiences on the edge of theirseats from the first curtain to the final denouement.


Curriculum Connections

The facts are these:

Edgar Allen Poe did disappear for five days prior to his death, his whereabouts andactivities are completely unknown. It is believed he boarded a ship for New York but even thatis 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’ssent for. The doctor and Poe’s relatives arranged for Poe’s transfer to nearby WashingtonHospital.

Throughout the night that followed, Poe remained delirious and delusional. Long into thenight he called out, over and over again, for someone named “Reynolds”, but no one thereknew who that was. Finally, Poe was calmed down. Three days later, after fading in and outof consciousness, but without regaining coherence, he died.

His enemies and literary rivals were quick to blame Poe’s drinking on his demise. Thereis 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 totuberculosis, 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 himselfsaid the drink didn’t make him mad, the madness made him drink. Some scholars havesuggested that Poe showed the symptoms of hypo-glycemia, which would explain his lowtolerance for alcohol and his delusional behavior at times. Whatever the diagnosis, Poe’smental condition was certainly severely impaired at the time of his death.

Who was the mysterious “Reynolds” to whom Poe called out? Many believe he wasJeremiah Reynolds, a minor Antarctic explorer of the 19th century. Reynolds, like many duringthis last age of exploration, believed that somewhere in the Antarctic region there was anentrance to the center of the earth, perhaps to a land of paradise. Poe used this theory and thejournals Reynolds had written about his Antarctic expeditions in two of his stories. Both hisshort novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. and Manuscript Found in the Bottle. tell talesof ghostly, ghastly and ultimately ill-fated voyages to the Antarctic.

While the inspiration for Poe’s fascination with the Antarctic can be traced to JeremiahReynolds there is little solid information as to the identity of Annabel Lee. Poe’s poem, AnnabelLee, was one of the last, perhaps the last poem Poe penned before his death. No one knowsthe identity of his beloved Annabel Lee, however. Perhaps she is someone biographers havefailed to discover. Most likely she was a creature only of Poe’s vivid imagination. Charleston


author and publisher Mrs. Elizabeth Verner Hamilton, in the Tradd Street Press’s SullivansIsland Edition of The Gold Bug, speculates that perhaps Annabel Lee was a young Charlestonbelle who became Poe’s first love. Poe was after all, stationed at Sullivans Island when he wasonly 17, young, impressionable and adventurous. He had run away from home, joined thearmy under the alias Edgar A. Perry and found himself stationed at Ft. Moultrie on SullivansIsland. If indeed, Annabel Lee was a Charleston girl, this would of course, make Charlestonthe fabled “kingdom by the sea.” This is all mere speculation, however. But wonderfulspeculation, 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, amysterious lady appears at cemetery where Poe is buried. Each year, she appears atmidnight and leaves a bottle of cognac and a single white rose on his grave. No one knows theidentify of this ghostly visitor.

FACTS ABOUT EDGAR ALLAN POE


o He was born Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809o 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 Richmondcelebrated the visit of the Marquis de Lafayette.

o Poe may have become engaged to Sarah Elmira Royster before he registered at theone-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 hadstrict rules against gambling, horses, guns, tobacco and alcohol, but these rules weregenerally ignored. Jefferson had enacted a system of student self-government, allowingstudents to choose their own studies, make their own arrangements for boarding, andreport all wrongdoing to the faculty. Poe gave up on the university after a year, and, notfeeling welcome in Richmond, especially when he learned that his sweetheart Roysterhad married Alexander Shelton, he traveled to Boston in April 1827, sustaining himselfwith odd jobs as a clerk and newspaper writer.

o Unable to support himself, on May 27, 1827, Poe enlisted in the United States Army asa private.

o Poe's regiment was posted to Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina and traveledby ship on the brig Waltham on November 8, 1827.


o Poe finally was discharged on April 15, 1829, after securing a replacement to finish hisenlisted 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 shewas 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 inpublic

o In June 1840, Poe published a prospectus announcing his intentions to start his ownjournal, The Stylus.

o On January 29, 1845, his poem "The Raven" appeared in the Evening Mirror andbecame a popular sensation.

o One theory, dating from 1872, indicates that cooping – in which unwilling citizens whowere forced to vote for a particular candidate were occasionally killed – was the causeof Poe's death.


THE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE

TALESo "The Black Cat"o "The Cask of Amontillado"o "A Descent into the Maelström"o "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar"o "The Fall of the House of Usher"o "The Gold-Bug"o "Hop-Frog"o "The Imp of the Perverse"o "Ligeia"o "The Masque of the Red Death"o "Morella"o "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"o "The Oval Portrait"o "The Pit and the Pendulum"o "The Premature Burial"o "The Purloined Letter"o "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether"o "The Tell-Tale Heart”

POETRYo "Al Aaraaf"o "Annabel Lee"o "The Bells"o "The City in the Sea"o "The Conqueror Worm"o "A Dream Within a Dream"o "Eldorado"o "Eulalie"o "The Haunted Palace"o "To Helen"o "Lenore"o "Tamerlane"o "The Raven"o "Ulalume"


OTHER WORKSo Politian (1835) – Poe's only playo The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) – Poe's only complete novelo "The Balloon-Hoax" (1844) – A journalistic hoax printed as a true storyo "The Philosophy of Composition" (1846) – Essayo Eureka: A Prose Poem (1848) – Essayo "The Poetic Principle" (1848) – Essayo "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 communicationo Understanding and reading literary textso Understanding and using informational textso Building Better vocabularyo Developing written communicationo Developing and using research strategies

All Social Studies meets the following standards:o Understanding of different life around them and across the worldo 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.


Activities After the Performance

DISCUSSION PROMPTS

1. What were aspects of the set, costumes, sound, lighting, or props that helped set themood and establish the setting of the play? Did the “design” team do a good job inmaking the story believable?

2. What were some of the special effects used in the show? How do you think the playersmade 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” andthe “bad guys.” Who are the trustworthy characters in this piece and who havequestionable motives?

ACTIVITIES

4. What were aspects of the set, costumes, sound, lighting, or props that you wouldchange? Using drawings or a diorama, create a set for Nevermore. What kinds ofprops 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 rolesto 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


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 PendulumStarring 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

Documents

Nevermore Study Guide