Delaware Shakespeare Festival returns to a world of specters and spirits this October with six performances of “Shakespeare/Poe: A Night of Readings from the Dark Side,” its annual visit with two masters of the macabre, in three remarkable spaces around New Castle County. Actors will read seasonally spooky selections from the plays of Shakespeare and the poems and short stories of Edgar Allan Poe. The weird sisters of Macbeth will meet again (whether or not the hurlyburly’s done) and the raven will certainly come knocking on the chamber door, but this year’s “Shakespeare/Poe” will also offer readings that have not appeared in previous installments of this popular autumn show, while accompanied for the first time by a live cellist. The performances will take place in the gothic (and possibly haunted) halls of Rockwood Mansion, in the Colonial-era Stone Stable in Historic Odessa, and amid the grandeur of the Read House and Gardens in notoriously haunted Old New Castle. Due to space limitations inside these historic properties, only 30 tickets will be sold for each performance. Performances will begin at 7:30 p.m. Fridays, Oct. 17 and 24, in the Stone Stable in Odessa; at 7 p.m. Saturdays, Oct. 18 and 25, at the Read House in Old New Castle; and at 6:30 p.m. Sundays, Oct. 19 and 26, at Rockwood Mansion in Wilmington. Tickets cost $18.50 and can be purchased on the Delaware Shakespeare Festival website at www.delshakes.org. At the Read House, guests can choose to add a mini-tour of the Read House for an additional $2. The tour begins at 6 p.m. (The readings at the Read House will end in time for guests to join the New Castle Historical Society’s “Hauntings in History Walking Tour” at 8:30 p.m. More information on the walking tours is available on the historical society’s website at www.newcastlehistory.org.)
