Red-Eye to Havre de Grace

Thaddeus Phillips produced his largest show to date: an original musical titled Red-Eye to Havre de Grace, about the delirious final days of Edgar Allen Poe's life, which he spent traveling by train between New York and Richmond. Phillips had presented prior versions in small productions and this time transformed and presented the work fully staged at the 2012 FringeArts Festival, with an expanded piano-based score and enhanced visual effects. Artistic collaborators and Minneapolis-based composers Jeremy and David Wilhelm reworked songs they had created for earlier versions of the piece and contributed new songs to the score, using lyrics taken primarily from Poe's letters to his mother-in-law. Ean Sheehy starred as a gaunt and sympathetic Poe, and Sophie Bortolussi played his dead child-wife Virginia, who haunts her widowed husband throughout the show. Teller, of magic duo Penn & Teller, provided creative input on visual sequences and illusions. New York Times critic Charles Isherwood wrote, "This exquisite show is among the most original musical theater works I've seen in years."

Click here to watch the full production of Red-Eye to Havre de Grace.