Edward Gorey Plays Cape Cod

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This book sprouted from the catalog for a small exhibit on Edward Gorey's stage work. For a full account of his multifaceted dramatic career, see The Theatrical Adventures of Edward Gorey: Rare Drawings, Scripts, and Stories, available in both print and e-book formats.

How to classify the extraordinary Edward Gorey? Artist? Writer? Dark humorist?

What about Dramatist?

It was in theatre that Gorey's public career started and finished. As a postwar Harvard University student, he and his friends Frank O'Hara, Alison Lurie, John Ashbery, and others created the legendary Poets' Theatre. After winning a Tony Award on Broadway for Frank Langella's Dracula, Gorey left New York for Cape Cod. From Woods Hole to Provincetown, he wrote, designed, and directed a scintillating set of "entertainments" starring local actors and his own troupe of handmade puppets.

Chief producer of Gorey's plays was his friend and neighbor Carol Verburg. Now she tells how he did it. From "The Helpless Doorknob" and "The Gilded Bat" to "Horror at Hamstrung Hall" and "Porptiga," she chronicles Gorey's adventures in drama, puppetry, opera, and even (briefly) acting.