A young Watford actor has revealed that under the restrictions of the pandemic, he created some of his best work to date.
Stephen Smith, 28, is an actor and theatre producer set to premiere his new solo show 'One Man Poe' at the Watford Palace Theatre for this year's Watford Fringe Festival, before taking it to the London Horror Festival for Halloween.
The show is a quadruple-bill of horror stories from 'the Godfather of Gothic Horror' Edgar Allan Poe, where Stephen will perform 'The Tell-Tale Heart', 'The Pit and the Pendulum', 'The Black Cat' and 'The Raven', back-to-back and live on stage.
The actor will perform each of the stories playing all four characters, with quick costume and make-up changes between the four parts, which he describes as a “macabre marathon”.
Stephen, who grew up in Benskin Road, Watford, said: "With the show being nearly two and a half hours long, and with roughly 13,000 words to memorise and four completely different characters to play... it's going to be challenging, to say the least!"
During the numerous lockdowns, Stephen, who was living with his younger brother and girlfriend, decided to put on a production of Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart', using the original text from 1843.
Using his mobile phone and streaming services like Facebook Live and Zoom, he created digital theatre shows, firstly from home and then from empty theatres, including an online retelling of 'Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde' at the Pump House Theatre, in Watford.
He continued: "I not only adapted as an actor in the pandemic, but the work I created under the strictest restrictions is some of my best work to date.
“As an actor, they say 'persistence is key' and keeping creative despite a pandemic has certainly turned some heads in the industry, leading to some fantastic future opportunities, with this new 'Poe show' being the prime example."
Stephen trained as an actor in Liverpool at Paul McCartney's Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) and graduated in 2017. At drama school, he set up a theatre company with friends called Threedumb Theatre.
Their first show as a company was a mini-tour of a First World War play to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.
READ: Croxley actors stage Not About Heroes to commemorate Somme centenary
Watford Palace theatre has supported Stephen with this idea to do the four stories from Edgar Allan Poe back-to-back - with funding they have received from the Culture Recovery Fund.
He added: “The Watford Borough Council, after seeing the work I was continually creating during the pandemic, was also quick to offer a very generous amount of sponsorship for 'One Man Poe' (or "whatever you do next" as they put it). Even my former drama school, LIPA, has offered substantial funding.”
'One Man Poe' runs at the Watford Palace Theatre on October 1 - 2, before moving to the Space on the Isle of Dogs for the London Horror Festival October 19-23, and concludes with a Halloween performance at the Southwark Playhouse on October 31.
Tickets for all three venues can be found at www.threedumbtheatre.com/OneManPoe
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