FANTASMAGORIANA

In the summer of 1816, at the Villa Diodati, Lord Byron, his personal physician John Polidori, his friend Percy Shelley, Shelley's fiancée Mary Godwin, their infant son William, and Godwin's stepsister Claire Clairmont, gather together on holiday. After a drunken night of exchanging ghost stories, Lord Byron challenges his contemporaries to write their own. And indeed, throughout a flurry of love and betrayal, sleepless nights and near death experiences, duels and an unending storm, every person in attendance walks away with their own ghost. Some, a great story, the likes of the Vampyre and Frankenstein. Others, the untimely deaths of their loved ones, or the specter of their own end.

HISTORY

Originally conceived in 2015, this show was composed in 2022, and workshopped in 2023.

An immersive experience premiered in the ballroom at The Magnolia Hall in Charleston, SC, on Halloween, 2024. Starring Joshua Broome as Lord Byron, Elizabeth Hoyland as Mary Shelley, Matt Foster as Dr. John Polidori, Zachary Hampton Butler as Percy Shelley, and Rune Vaughan as Claire Clairmont. Ryan Pagels on Piano, and Gwendolynn Morris on Lighting. A film of this production will be available on Patreon on April 5, 2025.

Art by Rebecca Morse.