Events: Arizona - Phoenix - Scottsdale

The dead won't stay buried in Phoenix this October.

PoeFest returns for its 17th haunting season, dragging Edgar Allan Poe's macabre masterpieces into the city's most chillingly historic venues. Arizona Curriculum Theater transforms the Hotel San Carlos and Rosson House Museum into stages where Poe's tales leap from page to flesh. In the creaking heart of downtown Phoenix, actors slip into the skins of Edgar Allan Poe’s mad narrators like they were born in padded cells; they make eye contact with you and suddenly you’re no longer a spectator, you’re a witness. And the witnesses don’t get away clean.

Step into shadows where "The Tell-Tale Heart" pounds beneath floorboards and "The Raven" circles overhead. Victorian séances crack open the veil on October 18th and 25th. Schoolchildren grades 7-9 can enter the Student Writing Competition until October 29th (prizes from Bookmans Entertainment Exchange).

Oct. 17-31, 2025. $20-$44.95 plus fees. www.poefest.org 1-888-343-4228.