Bloodcurdling entertainment from two horror masters, Bram Stoker and Edgar Allan Poe.
“…suddenly the moonlight broke through the clouds, showing me that I was in a graveyard, and that the square object before me was a great massive tomb of marble, as white as the snow that lay on and all around it. With the moonlight there came a fierce sign of the storm, which appeared to resume its course with a long, low howl, as of many dogs or wolves.—Bram Stoker, “Dracula’s Guest.”
Bloodcurdling entertainment from two horror masters, Bram Stoker and Edgar Allan Poe.
This program is devoted to two classic tales of terror. We begin with a piece by Bram Stoker, the author who fathered the whole vampire genre that has now swept over every department of our bookstores, from vampire recipe books to teenage vampire slayers to Bloodsucking for Dummies . “Dracula’s Guest” was originally intended to be part of Stoker’s novel Dracular, but didn’t make it into the final draft. However, it’s a powerful stand-alone tale, one that almost makes you hear the sound of the wolves on the windswept moor, as delivered by the regular performer on television’s “Daily Show,” Aasif Mandvi.
If Stoker established the vampire tale as a facet of popular culture, our next author, Edgar Allan Poe, is often credited with being the inventor of the murder mystery, and also of such gruesome chilling fictions as “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” In this classic, “The Masque of the Red Death”, Poe makes masterful use of the convention that shows people attempting to escape plague and death by isolating themselves in a stronghold of privilege, only to be visited by an implacable avatar of the very force they are fleeing. The reader is Fionnula Flanagan.
The musical interlude in this program is from “The First Walpurgis Night,” by Felix Mendelssohn, performed by The Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. The SELECTED SHORTS theme is Roger Kellaway’s “Come to the Meadow.”
"Dracula’s Guest" by Bram Stoker, read by Aasif Mandvi
"The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe, read by Fionnula Flanagan
For additional works featured on SELECTED SHORTS, please visit Symphony Space
We’re interested in your response to these programs. Please comment on this site or visit www.selectedshorts.org
Listener’s choice! On June 9th, 2010, SELECTED SHORTS at Symphony Space in New York will feature stories selected by our nationwide audience. Go to http://www.symphonyspace.org/shorts/audience_picks to submit your suggestions for a published story you think we should read. Then in the spring, you’ll vote for your favorite from among the final contenders.
Bloodcurdling entertainment from two horror masters, Bram Stoker and Edgar Allan Poe.
This program is devoted to two classic tales of terror. We begin with a piece by Bram Stoker, the author who fathered the whole vampire genre that has now swept over every department of our bookstores, from vampire recipe books to teenage vampire slayers to Bloodsucking for Dummies . “Dracula’s Guest” was originally intended to be part of Stoker’s novel Dracular, but didn’t make it into the final draft. However, it’s a powerful stand-alone tale, one that almost makes you hear the sound of the wolves on the windswept moor, as delivered by the regular performer on television’s “Daily Show,” Aasif Mandvi.
If Stoker established the vampire tale as a facet of popular culture, our next author, Edgar Allan Poe, is often credited with being the inventor of the murder mystery, and also of such gruesome chilling fictions as “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” In this classic, “The Masque of the Red Death”, Poe makes masterful use of the convention that shows people attempting to escape plague and death by isolating themselves in a stronghold of privilege, only to be visited by an implacable avatar of the very force they are fleeing. The reader is Fionnula Flanagan.
The musical interlude in this program is from “The First Walpurgis Night,” by Felix Mendelssohn, performed by The Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. The SELECTED SHORTS theme is Roger Kellaway’s “Come to the Meadow.”
"Dracula’s Guest" by Bram Stoker, read by Aasif Mandvi
"The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe, read by Fionnula Flanagan
For additional works featured on SELECTED SHORTS, please visit Symphony Space
We’re interested in your response to these programs. Please comment on this site or visit www.selectedshorts.org
Listener’s choice! On June 9th, 2010, SELECTED SHORTS at Symphony Space in New York will feature stories selected by our nationwide audience. Go to http://www.symphonyspace.org/shorts/audience_picks to submit your suggestions for a published story you think we should read. Then in the spring, you’ll vote for your favorite from among the final contenders.
About Selected Shorts
Selected Shorts features some of the finest artists of the American theater reading contemporary and classic short fiction-the most distinguished works of the early masters such as Chekhov, Maupassant, Malamud and dozens of others.
To listen to this program, and other recent programs, subscribe to the Selected Shorts podcast
Hosted by Isaiah Sheffer
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