Caw, Caw

Edgar Allan Poe’s work comes into schoolchildren’s lives when they’re about 12. Strangely enough, kids who have just discovered that they hate everything, especially school, not only universally love Poe, but also freely admit it. There is no tougher audience; by the time we get to high school, it’s accepted as a matter of course that Poe is rad. At the “Hallow's Eve-Eve Poe Party,” some of these bratty kids have grown up to be talented, sarcastic lovers of poetry and the macabre, chief among them bass player Lisa Mezzacappa. As a curator, composer, and crackerjack musician, she presents an evening with her own improvisational jazz group Bait & Switch; Poe-inspired songs by sweet, sweet songbird Katy Stephan; the Guts and Buttons accordion and violin duo live-scoring some scary old movies; and an original theatrical video performance by James Bewley. Poe-est of all, though, is a reading by Brent Cunningham, accompanied by something called the “Shadow Machine,” devised by Konrad Steiner. Let’s not forget the final line of The Raven: “And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor/Shall be lifted — nevermore!”
Fri., Oct. 30, 8 p.m., 2009