One of literature’s (and classic film’s) most famous monsters can trace his origin to a very weird vacation. Phantasmagoria returns for a Halloween shindig with Frankenstein: The Birth of Horror, looking back to a stormy 1816 getaway where writers Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, John Polidori and Claire Clairmont passed the time by trying to frighten one another.
As popular culture demonstrates, Mary clearly won. And two centuries later, their parlor game is still supplying nightmares. This production builds a whole evening around the stories born that night, including Polidori’s “The Vampyre,” Byron’s “Darkness” and the titular modern Prometheus.
For the uninitiated, the troupe’s whole thing is essentially gothic vaudeville: dramatic storytelling mixed with theater, puppetry and other old-school stage spectacles. The Orlando company creates a maximalist stage world designed to pull audiences closer to the eerie atmosphere of that fateful 1816 night. Wait until you find out the real monster was a simple quill pen — and the human brain.
8 p.m. Friday-Sunday, Oct. 16-18, Alexis & Jim Pugh Theater, Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, 445 S. Magnolia Ave., drphillipscenter.org, $50-$63.
Related Stories
Photos: Beabadoobee was a heavenly electrical storm in Orlando
Orlando ‘Thriller’ dance party seeks to raise money for anti-abortion center
Phantasmagoria does Frankenstein at the Dr. Phillips Center
This article appears in Oct. 14-20, 2026.