Poe Staged Room by Room Inside an 1842 Mansion

Nobody sits down. The audience moves between rooms while scenes run in parallel, and you choose which thread to follow rather than watching one stage. Poe wrote the story around seven coloured chambers, and the mansion supplies real ones. Follow a single performer long enough and you see a scene nobody else in the building is watching. Groups split naturally across the floors. Masks are handed out at the door and worn throughout the building.

Alexander Jackson Davis designed Lyndhurst in 1838 as a Gothic Revival country house above the Hudson, and the interiors kept their stained glass, vaulted ceilings and dark panelling. Forty acres of grounds run down toward the river. The building does half the atmospheric work before any performer appears. Corridors are narrow and the staircases are original, which shapes how the crowd moves. The grounds stay open before curtain, and the river view is worth arriving early for.

The performance runs Thursday, October 15 from six to nine in the evening at 635 South Broadway in Tarrytown. Metro-North Hudson Line reaches Tarrytown from Grand Central in about forty minutes. Wear shoes you can stand and climb stairs in for three hours. The house is cold in October. Anyone wanting an assigned seat and a clear sightline should choose a conventional theatre instead. Parking on site is free and the lot sits a short walk from the entrance.