The Southeast Ohio History Center will turn two November nights over to Edgar Allan Poe, hosting a History Mystery Night doubleheader on Friday, Nov. 6, and Saturday, Nov. 7, at 24 West State St. in Athens, the SE Ohio Times reported. Both evenings pair a live old-fashioned radio performance with a silent film, with organist Dennis James taking part in both nights, according to the SE Ohio Times.
The program pays tribute to Poe with two interpretations of his short story “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the SE Ohio Times reported. The first part of each evening is a live reading of the 1941 Inner Sanctum radio broadcast of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” performed by the Actors’ Moveable Theater and Dennis James. After a brief intermission, James will accompany the 1914 silent film “The Avenging Conscience,” which stars Henry B. Walthall and Blanche Sweet and was directed by D.W. Griffith, according to the SE Ohio Times.
The two nights are built differently on purpose. Friday, Nov. 6, is a dinner theater-style event with dinner provided by Purple Chopstix: doors open at 5:15 p.m., dinner is served at 5:30 p.m. and the performance begins at 6 p.m., with beer, wine and non-alcoholic beverages available, the SE Ohio Times reported. Saturday, Nov. 7, is designated as family night, with doors opening at 5:45 p.m. and the performance starting at 6:30 p.m.; popcorn, movie snacks and non-alcoholic beverages will be available for purchase at the concession stand, according to the SE Ohio Times.
The pairing is the point of the evening. Poe first published “The Tell-Tale Heart” in 1843, and the story — a narrator insisting on his sanity while describing a murder and the beating heart he believes he hears beneath the floorboards — has been retold in every medium American entertainment has invented since. The History Center’s program walks through two of those retellings in one sitting: network radio’s golden age, when Inner Sanctum turned horror stories into living-room theater in 1941, and silent film’s early feature era, when Griffith’s 1914 “The Avenging Conscience” drew on Poe’s tale of guilt and conscience.
Live organ accompaniment is what ties the halves together. Silent films were never truly silent in their own era — theaters employed pianists and organists to carry the emotion of the picture — and James, who performs on grand organ for both halves of the program, recreates that experience for the Athens audience, the SE Ohio Times reported. The radio half works the opposite way: a story told entirely in sound, performed live in front of the audience the way it was first broadcast.
The History Center, at 24 West State Street, is Athens’ home for the region’s history, and the SE Ohio Times reported the event highlights the center’s ongoing efforts to bring historical and cultural programming to the Athens community. It lands in a busy stretch for the city — related coverage includes Athens weighing a two-year Rumpke extension at its Nov. 2 meeting and a $300,000 boost for Southeast Ohio home repairs.
The double bill also shows how a regional history center uses performance to do its core work. Rather than a lecture about Poe, the Athens audience gets the stories the way earlier generations actually encountered them — around a radio in 1941 and in a picture house in 1914 — with a working organist carrying the silent film the way theater musicians did when the movie was new. For families on Saturday night, it is an introduction to classic horror with the lights of a community room around it; for Friday’s dinner audience, it is a fuller night out built around the same program.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
Confirmed, per the SE Ohio Times: the dates (Nov. 6 and 7), the venue (24 West State St., Athens), the two-part program, the Friday dinner by Purple Chopstix with its 5:15 p.m. doors, and the Saturday family night with its 5:45 p.m. doors. The History Center can be reached at 740-592-2280 for ticket and seating details, which the center is handling directly, according to the SE Ohio Times.
What happens next is the doubleheader itself: dinner and a radio ghost story on Friday, Nov. 6, and a family night of popcorn and silent film on Saturday, Nov. 7. For a small history museum, it is a bet that a 183-year-old story, told the way audiences heard it in 1914 and 1941, can still fill a room in 2026.
Photo: Tim Kiser, CC BY-SA