Carol (CJ) Verburg

On Sept. 13, San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum celebrated the closing of their jewel-box exhibition of original Gorey art and artifacts with a reception and live reading of one of the artist/author's most puzzling scripts, "The Helpless Doorknob: A Shuffled Story by Edward Gorey." This mysterious set of unrelated observations was first published as a deck of cards! The reading at CAM was performed by Mark Morgan, Margot Breier, Peter Fitzsimmons, and Romalyn Schmaltz. I directed it with the help of my notes from Edward's production when he included it in our first "entertainment" together, Useful Urns, at the Provincetown Theatre Company on Cape Cod in 1990.

What a treat to spend an evening talking about books, theater, and art with the people who love them!

Did you ever wonder how the author-illustrator of sparse, sinister tales like The Doubtful Guest and The Gashlycrumb Tinies designed a Tony Award-winning production of Dracula? and conspired on a 21st-century album with The Tiger Lillies and the Kronos Quartet?

If you missed "From Page to Stage and Back" on June 2 at the Book Club of California, don't worry -- you can catch the video on YouTube for a few more weeks.

And be sure to stop by San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum to see their jewel-box exhibition of original Gorey art and artifacts, extended till September 14. You can also pick up a copy of The Theatrical Adventures of Edward Gorey, stroke its red-velvet-trimmed cover, and have it signed in person at the closing reception 6-8 PM on Sept. 13. We'll celebrate Gorey's centennial year with a live reading of one of his most puzzling scripts!