An Arts & Culture Magazine

THE WOMAN IN BLACK PREMIERES AT CAPE MAY STAGE

Fog and creepily haunted houses, supernatural happenings, sea mists and dark stormy nights, lonely funerals and creaking attic doors, all combine to make Cape May Stage's next production "The Woman in Black," the next in the Equity theatre's popular series of thrilling gothic adventure stories.

Stephen Mallatratt's gripping adaptation of Susan Hill's best-selling novel combines the power and intensity of live theatre with a twisted and thrilling story to create a play that taps our primal fears. From September 27th through October 29th, the flesh-creeping journey of "The Woman in Black" will be presented at Cape May Stage's theatre at Bank and Lafayette Streets in downtown Cape May.

Directed by Michael Carleton, whose previous directing credits at Cape May Stage include The Price, Around the World in 80 Days, and Hyde, In the Shadows, "The Woman in Black" stars Cape May favorite, Jim Fitzgerald (Around the World in 80 Days, Every Christmas Story Ever Told), and highly praised actor, Charlie Bethel (2004's Beowulf).

The plot unfolds as a grieving middle-aged lawyer, Arthur Kipps, (Bethel), hires the services of a professional actor, (Fitzgerald), to help him re-enact - and thereby hopefully exorcise - a curse which has been cast over him and his family many years by the spectre of the woman in black.

"The Woman in Black" was triumphantly staged originally in Scarborough, England in 1987. It subsequently moved to the West End theatre district in London in 1989, where it has been thrilling theatre audiences for the past 17 consecutive years.

Originally published in the Upstage Magazine print edition 2006.