On the day Edgar Allan Poe was buried, a scurrilous obituary appeared in the New York Tribune. Within a year, Rufus Griswold published a biography further slandering his character and beginning many of the misconceptions and myths we still hold about Poe.  

We thought it only appropriate to start our show with Poe's death.

We meet Mr. Poe in the twilight between life and death, in the realm between heaven and hell, where past shadows loom large and the final defense of your actions and character is the only thing present.  

Madman. Drunk. Addict. Philanderer. Caught in the maelstrom of life's shadows, Mr. Poe will defend himself. We are the judge and jury. Will he succeed? 

Our Story

We started TMRTCo. in 2011 as an experiment to see if a small theater company could help in the revitalization of our town.  

What Makes Us Unique

We wanted a different approach; as a collective of local artists, amateurs and professionals, we banded together to form our troupe. Our vision was to offer original scripts that were fresh and exciting. Many of us have backgrounds in visual arts and some have technical backgrounds so part of our focus became the integration of strong visual effects to drive our story lines.  

Our Unorthadox Production Methods

Because we always workshop our shows, we abandoned the idea of a set season,  instead taking whatever time we needed to perfect a production. We also decided that a small and intimate number of audience members would allow us to extend the run time for each production ("Miss Lilly's" ran for 2 years). This approach allows more time between productions (developing our next show) as well as bringing the sense that there is always something to do in Downtown Mount Holly.

Bringing the Production Process to the Community

Part of our process is to perform public readings of our new works. We perform these readings in local coffee shops, bars, empty store fronts; anywhere we might draw in a new audience or possible members. 

As part of this we always include a question and discussion period, giving us feedback on what is working (or not working) while educating the general public on our specific approach to theater. We are also looking for ways to open up other parts of our process to the public (invites to rehearsals or technical workshops).

Currently we have three shows we are working on. The first is "The Poe Project" which is ready for production as soon as we raise the money. 

The second is "Lady Dunsworth's Dilemma," a contemporary farce based on the Victorian Parlor comedies. "Lady Dunsworth" got its start as a 30 minute sketch for a local festival. We received such wonderful feedback that now we have decided to develop it into a full length play. 

Our third show has at the working tittle "When A Liberal Education Goes Bad."  It exists in the form of an outline, character studies and several written scenes. It is best described as a dark and bloody romp, an absurdist's view of the coming revolution and the making of a mass murderer.  

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The Poe Production: The script is written, the show cast, and the director is in place. Initial rehearsals have begun and we are already experimenting with the shadow portion of the show. We have been playing with live silhouettes combined with mechanical cutouts, overhead projectors with ink and water, soft fabric puppets submerged in fish tanks, and even video projecting directly onto the actor's face.  

We are excited about the possibilities we have been discovering. 

We are already in pre-production at our Mount Holly, NJ location. We project to start performing the show by the beginning of October, 2015 (plenty of time for Halloween season).

Our Needs: Although we are inventive and used to cobbling together our technical needs, it would be nice to have some new equipment to help us raise our professional standards.  

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Our time is cheap (actually free) so all donations will go directly into the materials and equipment we need to produce this show. 

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Any money raised past our goal will be used to enhance the theater space itself.  While none of us mind a dirty old warehouse, we do consider the needs of our audience. It would be nice to offer some comfortable seating, perhaps on risers or to hang fabric over the cinderblock walls; some sort of house lighting would also be nice.