I couldn’t believe it when I first heard the Downtown Repertory Theatre Company was doing a show called The Assassination of Edgar Allan Poe. An immersive play. A deathbed mystery. Right in the middle of downtown Los Angeles.
It premiered in 2018. Came back in 2019. And the setting? The Historic Pico House. A building so old, its walls feel like they’ve soaked up every secret whispered inside.
The experience was nothing like I’d ever done before. It was like stepping into one of those creepy “choose your own adventure” books—except this time, I was living the pages. After a quick, tense introduction, we had to make a choice: follow Moran… or Griswold. Two men, two stories, and one dying Edgar Allan Poe. Whoever you followed changed the whole night.
And then came the puzzle. Cryptic letters. Hidden codes. A message you had to crack. It was like Poe himself was reaching out from the grave, daring us to solve it before time ran out.
The courtyard at Pico House was perfect—bare brick walls, dark shadows, and a feeling that the past might come crawling back any second. The set was simple. But the actors made the place come alive. Voices echoed. Footsteps scraped. And every performance had you wondering… who really owned Poe’s soul?
I left with chills. And I’m still hoping someone dares to bring it back again.
Immersive theatre events in Austin:
- The Eureka Room
- Wonderspaces
- Creek Show
- The Museum of Ice Cream
- Vision Gland
- Bat City ScareGrounds
- LaLa’s Little Nugget
- Miracle on 5th Street
- Tiki Tatsu-ya
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