“I was totally blown away by the music and electrifying energy!”

-EST audience member

The Doctor and the Devils

by Dylan Thomas,

Adapted by Katherine Kahrs and Owl-LIght Theater

Music and Lyrics by Lacy Rose

SYNOPSIS

Originally a screenplay by Dylan Thomas written in 1945, The Doctor and the Devils is a retelling of real events surrounding the 1828 trial of "Burke and Hare" in Edinburgh, Scotland. In Thomas’s iteration, chair Professor of Anatomy at the Edinburgh Anatomical School, Dr. Thomas Rock, pays two men he believes to be body-snatchers or "resurrectionists" to provide cadavers for his famed lectures on anatomy. The fresher the bodies the more Dr. Rock pays. No questions asked. Rock ends up fueling a system of greed and murder. Because the victims are among the city’s lowest and forgotten class, authorities only catch on when the reputation of the city’s top academic institution is at stake.

OUR JOURNEY

Since 2008, Katherine Kahrs has been bewitched by Dylan Thomas’s original and out-of-print screenplay. After an ensemble-driven, award-winning presentation of the work at the NYC FRINGE FESTIVAL, in 2009 by her co-founded Rag and Bone Theater Company, Kahrs felt that adapting the piece set to an original score would enhance Dylan Thomas’s story tenfold.

Fast forward to 2016, Kahrs meets singer/song writer Lacy Rose (who happened to also be an avid Dylan Thomas fan). Together and with the blessings from Thomas’s granddaughter, Hannah Ellis, Rose and Kahrs set out to re-imagine the story for the musical theater stage.

In June of 2018, Kahrs and Rose, along with co-writer Jonathan Silver and the Owl-Light Theater team, presented a staged-reading of the piece directed by Dara Malina, at the Ensemble Studio Theater. Written for string quartet, voice and piano, Rose’s hauntingly beautiful score dances admirably along side Dylan Thomas’s pros. Not only was it was a thrillingly successful evening of live theater, but it was was highly informative for Kahrs and Rose’s examine where their next draft needed to go.

The Doctor and the Devils creators are currently seeking further developmental support for the piece as they dive into further drafts and exciting collaboration prospects. If you have any questions or inquiries about the project, email us at owllighttheater@gmail.com

Concert Reading Directed by Dara Malina, June 22nd 2018 at The ENSEMBLE STUDIO THEATER

Photo Credit: Jordan Battiste

feedback from our first AUDIENCE:

-“Some of the most incredible theater I have seen recently.”

-“And there should be more, much more of this delectable piece still in the works. This piece needs backing…and a venue in which to develop…Dylan Thomas' work is much enriched by the music of Lacy Rose and the fantastic story telling of this intimate company. Jumping into this project for the long haul would be advantageous in my opinion, to those producers looking for an edgy "new" work…this piece has a future in various mediums. Dark, magical and filled with promise ‘The Doctor and the Devils’ illustrates beautifully the possibility of the devil in all of us, willing to be tempted and seduced.”

-“This had me on the edge of my seat!”

-“I was totally blown away by the music and electrifying energy!”