The National Edgar Allan Poe Theatre had an idea — mash up Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens. The Raven versus A Christmas Carol. The haunting spirit of “Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore’” versus Tiny Tim proclaiming, “God bless us, everyone.” The result is A Christmas Carol for Edgar Al len Poe. Based in Baltimore, the National Edgar Allan Poe Theatre was lucky to team with playwright Zac Pensol, winner of a 2021 Saturday Visiter Award at the International Edgar Allan Poe festival. “I was that weird kid growing up in Kentucky,” he shared on the opening night for this commissioned work. “I loved Poe — the marriage of humor, sadness, and fear.”  Scene from ‘A Christmas Carol for Edgar Allan Poe.’ Photo by Alan Kayanan. This is the artist’s first full-length play, and it is bound to be a holiday classic. However, you will want to say you saw it first with this production in Baltimore at the hip and artful Motor House across from the Maryland Institute College of Art (please note for those like me travelling from Montgomery County to Baltimore, there is ample parking right behind the theater, a cool bar-lounge offering light eats as well as drinks, an art gallery, and the night we were there, even a DJ and performer).  But back to A Christmas Carol for Edgar Allan Poe. It’s first-rate. Thrilling even, and I say this as someone who must now admit to being not a fan of A Christmas Carol — its triteness, its holiday-time melodrama, and its focus on redeeming the capitalistic billionaire of his time, Scrooge, is worn to a nub, for this writer.  A Christmas Carol for Edgar Allan Poe turns that all around.  The play opens on Christmas Eve with Poe, a tormented, struggling writer, jealously reading A Christmas Carol — Dickens was a lauded contemporary of Poe — to his beautiful wife, Virginia Clemm Poe (played by Sarah Bella Joyce), who is dying of tuberculosis. She has an undying passion for Poe — even as Virginia faces death. Joyce’s remarkable performance grows even more gripping as the play unfolds, and her ghost haunts Poe.  The heart of the play is Poe’s anguish — his struggle with alcoholism and despair over his lack of literary success — his “failure” and “madness” drive him to write late into the night, forsaking his sick young wife. With three actors convincingly embodying Poe at different stages of his life, this play embraces three specters of Christmas with fear, anger, and resistance.  First and foremost, the contemporary Poe is played with heart and soul, and with flashes of wild-eyed flair, by Ian Blackwell Rogers. On Christmas Eve, his spirit guide, The Raven, an evocatively prescient Jade Greene, warns him of his nighttime fate.  Scene from ‘A Christmas Carol for Edgar Allan Poe.’ Photo by Alan Kayanan. The next Poe is his younger self (Oz Heiligman), who is led by the Ghost of Memory back to his lonely childhood as an orphan in a family friend’s home. Poe’s first brushes with alcoholism and failure are seen here. Even more so, the Ghost of Memory holds a painful mystery within her that slowly unfolds to Poe.  The last Poe is his older self, who faces the apparition of one of his own famous creations, “The Masque of the Red Death,” seen here as the voiceless Specter of Fear. This aging, tormented Poe (Alex Zavistovich) embodies all the pain of the original Scrooge, forced to face his life’s shortcomings, but this play/actor/production does so much more as it brings us into the pained soul of the artist, who struggles with commerce versus art, with making art and sacrificing family and all else for art. This play brings forth the idea that we are masters of our fate, or so Poe will proclaim as he wakes on Christmas Day.  Brilliance abounds in this production. The black box theater is absolutely transformed under the elegantly intimate direction of Mark Kamie. The Ghost of Memory (Mallory Shear, who also plays the Specter of Fear) is tender, lost, and knowing all at once. The Spirit of Fortune (Anthony Parker) is captivating, alluring, and fanciful all at once, too, stealing the stage when he appears.  And their costumes! The costumes (also by Sarah Belle Joyce) of the Raven and all the ghosts are magical in their steampunk, maximalist creativity, as is the makeup artistry (Siobhan Beckett). The last bit of brilliance, which transforms the theater with the yowls of a black cat, a raven, and original ethereal compositions, is the sound design/original composition by James D. Watkins III. A Christmas Carol for Edgar Allan Poe ends with hope and renewal. This play makes one ache for Poe anew, and for such visionary truths for our artistic selves.     Running Time: Two hours, plus a 15-minute intermission.  A Christmas Carol for Edgar Allan Poe plays through December 21, 2025, presented by The National Edgar Allan Poe Theatre, performing at Motor House, 120 W. North Avenue, Baltimore, MD. Showtimes are Fridays at 8:00 pm, Saturdays at 2:00 pm and 8:00 pm, and Sundays at 2:00 pm. Tickets are $50 general admission ($35 students, veterans, and seniors 65+) and available online. A pay-what-you-can option is also available, with a $5 minimum. The program is online here. SEE ALSO:‘A Christmas Carol for Edgar Allan Poe’ to debut in Baltimore (news story, November 10, 2025)  The post ‘A Christmas Carol for Edgar Allan Poe’ is thrilling and first-rate appeared first on DC Theater Arts. ...read more read less