Time, so they say, is a flat circle. That’s certainly true in improvised cosmic horror drama Speak No More: Lovecraft, a constantly changing tale of cosmic horror where characters and audiences flow between spaces and interlocking stories that loop back upon themselves three times. “There’re 10 different stars of the show,” said director and performer Kate Meehan, “and the audience can follow any one of us.”
The show at the Tavern is the latest in physical theatre experts La Fenice’s Speak No More series. These were inspired by the New York smash Sleep No More, which turned an entire building into a massive, wordless adaptation of Macbeth. “Seeing this immersive show that was performed silently,” Meehan said, “we went, ‘Oh, this is what we do.’”
The first production was a Shakespearean homage with improv troupe Golden at Hideout Studios, but this evolved into site-specific creations starting with murder-mystery Golden Age at the Neill-Cochran House. A cinematic influence insinuated itself with VVitch at the Haskell House and Contagion at Independence Brewery, which drew heavily on interstellar horrors like The Thing and Alien. However, Lovecraft diverges from those earlier iterations because their physical violence is replaced by internalized horrors. Speak No More veteran cast member Tatiana Jitkoff said, “It’s much less murdery and much more about madness.”
Each night is different, with random improv prompts – dubbed “secrets” – given to the cast. Yet each performance’s narrative loops also evolve between repetitions, and audiences can follow the interlocking stories on their own terms. Some follow one character throughout the night. Others flit between scenes. Cast member Adrian Prado noted that one of his great pleasures on any given night is to debrief with audience and cast members about their experiences. As each performer is dedicated to building their own subplot of the night, Prado said, “Half the time we don’t know the full story.”
Each Speak No More is informed by its nontraditional performance space. Meehan explained that Lovecraft actually began because she was looking for a way to work more closely with their peers at Esther’s Follies. The comedy cabaret’s co-owners, Shannon Sedwick and Michael Shelton, had bought the century-old Tavern in 2018. Sheehan recalled saying, “‘Well, we’ve got this installment thing we can do,’ and Shannon was like, ‘Absolutely, come on over.’”
As for drawing on the literary works of master of eldritch dread H.P. Lovecraft, that came from an idle conversation about future shows during the B. Iden Payne Awards ceremony. A maritime setting was proposed, maybe pirates, but the old timbered rooms of the Tavern suggested a New England inn, and so Lovecraft’s aquatic obsessions seeped in. “It started off as a joke suggestion that evolved very quickly into a topic and a genre that inspired people,” Jitkoff said.
That the writer’s name has become an adjective – Lovecraftian – shows that his influence extends beyond his own writings. Indeed, the Monday before the show opened, the cast and crew gathered for a special screening of 2019’s Color Out of Space, widely regarded as one of the best Lovecraft adaptations. Prado said he was more influenced by Lovecraft-adjacent works like the TV show Warehouse 13 than the author himself. Similarly, Jitkoff said, “The first time I had any exposure to Lovecraft was playing a roleplaying game, and then I played a board game that was directly inspired by Lovecraft and talked about Cthulhu and eldritch horrors and Miskatonic University.”
Meehan is already planning the next installment of Speak No More: a theatrical ghost story set to be performed inside the Scottish Rite Theater in fall 2027. “We’re just so lucky that Austin has so many great historic places,” she said, “and it’s a way to get people inside to really see what a gift some of these places are.”
This article appears in August 7 • 2026.
