Carlsbad Playreaders Celebrate Halloween with ‘Hideous Progeny’

Why should Halloween be just for kids? On Oct. 31 at 7:30 p.m., join Carlsbad Playreaders for a reading of Emily Dendinger’s “Hideous Progeny,” which uncovers the events that would lead Mary Shelley to write her haunting novel “Frankenstein.” 

It was a dark and stormy night in a house by the lake when poet Lord Byron challenged his house guests to write a ghost story that was both original and frightening.

Witty, salacious and often melodramatic, “Hideous Progeny” takes these larger-than-life figures and depicts them as the normal teenagers they were: overeducated, egotistical and convinced they'll change the world.

“A seamless blend of fact and fantasy, ‘Progeny’ accomplishes for the Romantics what Tom Stoppard did for Elizabethans in ‘Shakespeare in Love’ but with more subtlety and fewer in-jokes for English majors,” raved Time Out Chicago.

Mary Shelley is played by actress Jo Anne Glover, cofounder of San Diego’s acclaimed Moxie Theatre. Percy Shelley is played by Nick Kennedy and Byron is played by Jeffrey Jones. The cast also includes Gemma Grey, Morgan Trant and Steven Lone.

The play reading takes place at Ruby G. Schulman Auditorium, located at 1775 Dove Lane. Tickets are a suggested donation of $5 for adults and $1 for students. For more information, visit carlsbadplayreaders.org or call 760-602-2012.