PARADOX Media and Vau de Vire Society announce the newly expanded 2017 Edwardian Ball season in honor the late-great macabre cult author, comic artist, illustrator and cartoonist Edward Gorey with a move to a larger Los Angeles venue and the addition of a third Edwardian Ball in a brand new exotic port-of-call city. The 17th Annual Edwardian Ball San Francisco will take place Friday and Saturday, January 20 & 21, 2017 at the Regency Center; the dramatically expanded 8th Annual Edwardian Ball Los Angeles moves into its new home of the historic Globe Theatre in the heart of the Broadway Downtown Theatre District on Saturday, February 11, 2017; and the first-ever Edwardian Ball New Orleans takes place Saturday, March 25, 2017 at Generations Hall, a magnificently renovated sugar refinery built in the early 1820’s.
Edward Gorey is the ground-breaking, genre–defying and critically-acclaimed graphic novelist who is credited with influencing Charles “Addams Family” Addams, Lemony Snicket, Neil Gaiman (Coraline and Day of the Dead), Rob Reger (Emily the Strange), Alison Bechdel, (Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama and Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic), and Tim Burton (Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, and Beetlejuice).
For the uninitiated, The Edwardian Ball presents a unique blend of live music, theatre, fashion, circus, fine art, riveting stage shows, literature, ballroom dancing, DJs, and character play in an enticing and whirlwind alternative universe extravaganza. This multi-city, multi-media exposition of the eccentric and esoteric, long considered San Francisco’s time-traveling boutique amalgamation of Cirque du Soleil-meets-Mardi Gras, has grown over the past sixteen years from an underground club party into an internationally recognized festival of the arts, drawing attendees from all over the world, operating with the blessing of The Edward Gorey Charitable Trust.
Each year, as part of its extensive entertainment offering, the Edwardian Ball stages a raucously capricious, whimsical, dramatic and climactic theatrical production of an Edward Gorey tale as the centerpiece performance homage to the literary great. This year the living interpretation and celebration of the selected Gorey story revels in the darkest of black comedy and ominous gothic intrigue, suspense, and mystery with the theme of Murder in the presentation of, “The Deadly Blotter;” an unconventional, unusual, intriguing, eccentric and esoteric whodunit, the guidelines of which will be defined and redefined by the attendees, all of whom are either sleuths or suspects in hilarious homicidal hijinks.
Justin Katz, Executive Producer and co-founder of the Edwardian Ball, states, “This year we present a hat tip to the cinematic murder mystery noir in our presentation of ‘The Deadly Blotter.’ The three Edwardian Ball affairs, staged in three unique and distinctive cities, each sharing the same commonality in cultural magnetism, mysticism, and magical allure, as well as troubled, tragic and tortured pasts, are, in a way, the three parts of a trilogy. Aficionados of the arts, music, literature, and cinema, who relish community participation and a desire to create and perform as Edward Gorey characters in the chapters of their own individualistic plays, will find their home in these darkly gothic, romanticized, gilded and gentile Neo-Victorian and Edwardian-era parties that imagine an alternative distant past which intertwines with an elegantly re-imagined future.”
Other darkly decadent and delightful attractions include the award-winning Edwardian Vendor Bazaar, Portrait Booth, Museum of Wonders, locally distilled absinthe cocktails, Saturday Afternoon Tea Service, steam-powered art & installations, parlour games, alluring sideshows, and much more.*
San Francisco:
• What: The 17th Annual Edwardian Ball San Francisco
• When: Friday, January 20, 2017 and Saturday, January 21, 2017
• Hours: 8 pm to 2 am
• Where: Regency Ballroom, 1300 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco, CA 94109, https://www.theregencyballroom.com Directions: https://goo.gl/maps/4JcdZhAY58m
Los Angeles:
What: The 8th Annual Edwardian Ball Los Angeles
• When: Saturday, February 11, 2017
• Hours: 8 pm to 2 am
• Where: Globe Theatre LA, 740 S. Broadway, Los Angeles CA 90014,
https://www.globetheatre-la.com
New Orleans:
• What: The First-Ever Edwardian Ball New Orleans
• When: Saturday, March 25, 2017
• Hours: 8 pm to 2 am
• Where: Generations Hall, 310 Andrew Higgins Drive, New Orleans, Louisiana 70130, https://www.generationshall.com
• Attire: Creative Period Costumes Strongly Encouraged
• Ticket Prices: $45 and up dependant on city. Prices Increase as Event Draws Near.
*Please refer to https://www.edwardianball.com to purchase tickets and for additional info, as specific attraction, performance and entertainment line-ups and itineraries vary slightly from city-to-city.
All accompanying Edwardian Ball press images are graciously provided by and credited to Marco Sanchez: https://www.marcosanchez.net
Edwardian Ball 2016 from Blackbird Films on Vimeo.