Poe: A Tale of Madness

This world premiere won’t be a danse macabre, per se, but we’re dying to see what Ballet Austin’s Artistic Director Stephen Mills has conjured by way of exploring the life and works of that darkling prince of American letters, Edgar Allan Poe. Mills’ choreography, gracefully (and eldritchly) embodied by the company’s finest at the Long Center, doesn’t take place in any grave silence, of course – the kinetic biography is powered by a musical score from composer Graham Reynolds, performed live by the Austin Symphony Orchestra, and features a thrilling libretto penned by the Rude Mechs’ appropriately raven-haired Shawn Sides. – Wayne Alan Brenner