Gorey: The Secret Lives of Edward Gorey

This fantasy memoir chronicles the mysterious life of Edward Gorey, an artist and writer with a genius for the macabre. In a piercing, funny, and lyrical blend of fact and fantasy, Gorey: The Secret Lives of Edward Gorey moves cinematically forward and backward through 50 years of his life. The enigmatic Gorey is embodied by three different actors — Andrew Dawson (Acts of Love), Phil Gillen (Drunk Shakespeare), and Aidan Sank (Peter and the Starcatcher, Reg.) — who converse with their younger and older selves. With the help of director and playwright Travis Russ, they bring to light Gorey’s dark imagination and personal demons, as well as the loneliness of creative genius.

A satirical and eccentric aesthete, Edward Gorey (1925 – 2000) enraptured readers with his subversive yet delightful drawings and his cryptic children’s stories dealing with death, love, and oddity. He also illustrated works of other writers, including Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot, Charles Dickens, Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, John Updike, Virginia Woolf, and Bram Stoker. Gorey’s designs for the 1977 Broadway production of Dracula starring Frank Langella earned him a Tony Award for Best Costume Design and a nomination for Best Set Design. His iconic animations for the opening theme of the PBS show Mystery! in 1980 are still used on Masterpiece Mystery today. Gorey’s influence also endures in the work of Tim Burton, Lemony Snicket, and Neil Gaiman.