Picnic Theatre Actors Read Some Politics into their Play

The Picnic Theatre Company’s “Evenings With Edgar Allan Poe” at Dumbarton House were meant to be unique – and creepy – Halloween party performances, but some of the evening’s lead actors read some real world relevancy in between the lines.

“Scary things that can happen in real life are scarier than fiction,” insisted Christina Sevilla. “Poe is fun. At the end of the night, the curtain goes up and all of the scary things that we showed you aren’t real.  But things that happen in the real world can be a lot scarier than that.”

And, as usual in Washington, real life concerns tend to center around public policy issues.

“Poe can actually be very political,” added Sevilla’s co-star Michael Clements.  “The bleeding heart and chopping of things… it’s all very relevant.  There’s a lot of head chopping going on in Washington these days!”

*A version of this post is available on Niteside.