Stephen King's Misery Coming to Erie Playhouse For Spooky Season

Petr Bonek

The iconic Stephen King novel Misery comes to the Erie Playhouse stage just in time for spooky season. The small, three-person cast creates an insular, intimate, and psychologically terrifying experience for theatergoers.

PREMIERING FRIDAY, OCT. 13

Stephen King is one of the most renowned authors to have set pen to paper, and his novel Misery is one of his most psychologically creepy stories. The scene is set on a wintry road where author Paul Sheldon has crashed his car. Sheldon writes a series known to the audience as Misery's Child and has garnered a large following.

One such fan of his work is Annie Wilkes, who claims to be "his number one fan." Annie finds Paul after his wreck and takes him home to tend to him and mend his wounds. From there, things get strange and take dark, unexpected turns.

Carolin Lynn is the director on this three-person performance and she is very excited to be back in the director's chair, "I haven't directed a show since the last show presented before the pandemic shutdown in March of 2020." Lynn also notes that she's most excited to be involved in a production of this kind, "I am always excited to be involved in the non-musical productions we do at the Playhouse." Lynn is genuinely enthusiastic about the actors involved in this production. "Sue Ellen (Wojciechowski) who is playing Annie, Matt (Fuchs) who is playing Paul Sheldon, and Wayne (Gardner, in his mainstage debut) who is playing Buster, are doing such a wonderful job working so hard on their parts. With only three actors in the show, there is nowhere to hide on that stage."

Speaking on preparing for these roles, Lynn says, "To come into rehearsal in the right emotional state, especially if we have those 'dark' moments to practice, gets hard in some moments. We'll run those particular sections a few times so we can get our emotions aligned the more we perform it." She adds, "It helps that the actors are all supportive of each other during all of this."

Whether they're King fans or not, any audience member will be lucky to witness this small cast with huge hearts playing this story out on stage. Misery is an enthralling story directed by a Playhouse veteran of 29 years, told by some very talented local actors. Oh, and the opening day is on Friday the 13th. SPOOKY!

Weekends throughout Oct. 29, Premiering Friday, Oct. 13 // 7:30 p.m. // $20.40 // For tickets and info: erieplayhouse.org