"The Curious Life of Edgar Allan Poe" Ballet coming to Baltimore Oct. 3

Chicago-based Ballet 5:8 is pleased to announce that Edgar Allan Poe’s story will come home to Baltimore in a form audiences have never experienced before. The company will present The Curious Life of Edgar Allan Poe for one performance only, Saturday, Oct. 3 at 5 p.m. at Baltimore’s historic Hippodrome Theatre. The ballet previously debuted at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in April 2026 in Chicago.

Tickets for The Curious Life of Edgar Allan Poe are available online at BaltimoreHippodrome.com, Ticketmaster.com, or the Hippodrome Box Office (12 N Eutaw Street) Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and on show days from 11 a.m. to curtain. Ticket prices range from $40-$110.

“There is something deeply meaningful about bringing this work to Baltimore,” said Julianna Rubio Slager, Ballet 5:8 Artistic Director and co-choreographer of the production. “I created this ballet to look beyond the familiar Gothic image of Poe and to resurface the man beneath the legends. To perform it at the Hippodrome, just blocks from where he is buried, feels like bringing the work home.”

Poe’s best-known works become the guideposts of the ballet’s 90-minute journey through his life. Scenes inspired by The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart, Annabel Lee and The Masque of the Red Death connect the writer’s turbulent experiences to the poems and stories that continue to captivate readers nearly two centuries later.

Choreographed by Rubio Slager and Glorielle Niedfeldt, The Curious Life of Edgar Allan Poe enters the strange and beautiful inner world of one of America’s most enduring writers. Through neo-classical ballet, African Diaspora movement traditions, spoken word, music and immersive theatrical imagery, the work moves through obsession, grief, love, madness and longing. It does not simply retell Poe’s stories; it asks what kind of man could have written them in the first place.

Supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of the United States’ 250th anniversary commemoration, the production reimagines Poe not as a distant literary icon, but as a deeply human soul wrestling with beauty, loss and the fear of being forgotten. The ballet draws from Poe’s life and writing to explore the tension between despair and redemption that still pulses through his work today.

Dr. Harry Lee Poe, Poe scholar and living relative, praised the production: “The conception of the ballet was stunning. There aren’t words to convey how it was able to capture the life of Poe and present it with dance. It was marvelous.”

Chris Semtner, curator of the Poe Museum in Richmond, called it a “brilliant performance,” adding, “It captured the melancholy feeling of Poe. A beautiful sort of sorrow with a tinge of mystery.”

The Baltimore premiere is part of the eighth annual International Edgar Allan Poe Festival & Awards, presented by Poe Baltimore. The festival draws Poe admirers, artists, authors, scholars and performers to Baltimore for a weekend honoring Poe’s life, death and enduring influence. Its free outdoor festival runs Oct. 2-4 from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and includes Poe-themed performances, exhibits, vendors, books, food, tours and the popular POErade costume contest. Additional ticketed events take place throughout the weekend, with proceeds supporting the preservation and expansion of the Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum.

To learn more about The Curious Life of Edgar Allan Poe, visit Ballet58.org.