Written, Directed, and Performed by Tea Alagic

Production A Stateless Theatre Company Production

Adapted from the Poetry and Writings of Edgar Allan Poe

Presented at Philadelphia Fringe Festival, 1997–1998

About the Production
Men Have Called Me Mad is a devised theatre piece inspired by the life, writing, and final journey of Edgar Allan Poe. The work explores the events surrounding Poe’s final days in 1849, when he was found in a delirious state in Maryland and later died in Baltimore under mysterious circumstances. Drawing from Poe’s texts-including “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “Ligeia,” and “The Bells”- the piece creates a fragmented, psychological world shaped by memory, imagination, and collapse. Rather than a conventional biography, the production offers an atmospheric interpretation of Poe’s inner life and enduring literary presence.

About the play:
On the night of October 3, 1849 Edgar Allan Poe boarded a train in Philadelphia, intending to go to NYC. In fact, he had boarded a train that was going in the opposite direction. He was found in Havre de Grace, MD, in a state of delirium. After this, he was sent to Baltimore, where he was found three days later, dead and wearing a stranger’s clothes. “Men Have Called Me Mad” explores this mysterious narrative of one of America’s foremost writers, as the action evokes Poe’s memories, his ghosts, his love and his eventual madness, using the poems “Ligeia,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Bells.”

Created, Written, Directed, Produced, and Performed