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Getting invited to a party in a Gothic mansion sounds glamorous...until you realize Edgar Allan Poe wrote the guest list. This October, Lyndhurst Mansion will open its doors for an immersive production of The Masque of the Red Death, where the evening’s prospects are far darker than its dress code.
Running on select dates starting October 15 through October 30, the Irvington Shakespeare Company production turns the historic Tarrytown home into Prince Prospero’s abbey. That’s the secluded hideaway where Poe’s extravagantly wealthy host gathers his courtiers to enjoy themselves while a deadly plague ravages the world outside.
But instead of simply settling into a theater seat, visitors will enter the masquerade as Prospero’s guests and move from room to room as the tale unfolds. Lyndhurst’s Gothic halls will be dressed in the garish colors and grotesque beauty of the horror story, adding substantial mounting dread to a particularly handsome home. (There’s a pleasing historical coincidence here, too: both the mansion and Poe’s story date to 1842.)
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The setting places the production squarely in Sleepy Hollow Country—where the Headless Horseman may be the region’s usual Halloween headliner—even though Lyndhurst itself is in neighboring Tarrytown. Luckily, the calendar clearly still has room for another famously unwelcome party guest.
Performances run between 6pm and 9pm, with groups setting off every 20 minutes. Tickets cost $45 plus service fees, and organizers recommend allowing approximately an hour on the property. The experience is intended for ages 12 and up. Geordanes of Irvington will sell sweet treats on-site if your brush with literary mortality leaves you feeling peckish.
Book ahead—each performance has limited capacity and even a doomed masquerade has to manage its guest list.