The name
One beam, and whatever is standing just outside it
A dark lantern is a lamp with a shutter. Slide the shutter and it throws a single narrow beam; everything the beam misses stays black. Nineteenth-century constables carried them into houses at night, which is roughly what we are doing here.
That is the method as well as the name. Small rooms, small casts, one source of light, and the audience close enough to hear people breathe.
What we make
Adaptations, mostly of the dead
Dark Lantern adapts gothic horror for the stage — Poe first, and the writers who came after him. The source material is out of copyright, which means the money goes to actors and rooms instead of to rights-holders, and the stories have already survived a hundred and eighty years of being retold.
Every production is built to work three ways: live in front of an audience, filmed in the manner of a classical television play, and adapted again as audio drama. One script, three afterlives.
The company was founded in Denver in 2026 by writer and director James Deverell. It is at the beginning of its first production, and everything on this site should be read in that light.
In production
- Casting now
- In development
- Denver, 2027
The Tell-Tale Heart
A new one-act stage adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe, set on the night of the murder and told in real time across an interrogation table. Three actors, one room, roughly fifty-five minutes.
We are looking for three adult male actors now.
The production and the casting call →Keep in touch
Know when there is something to see
Performance dates, casting calls, and the occasional note about what we are making. Infrequent, and no one else gets your address.