On Thursday, October 30, at 6:30 p.m., Phoenixville Public Library presents HALLOWEEN HAUNTINGS—two American tales of ghostly suspense. Written in the days of ominously flickering candles and kerosene lamps, “The Shadows on the Wall” and “The House That Was Not” continue to thrill.

In the wake of a sudden mysterious death, “The Shadows on the Wall” draws four siblings home to a familiar but menacing New England parlor.  “The House That Was Not” lures an unsuspecting new bride across the bleak Nebraska prairie. Authored by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1903) and Elia Wilkinson Peattie (1898), respectively, these tales evoke the America of a century ago, enthralling audiences today.

In this unique one-woman show, professional actress Michèle LaRue portrays eight characters. She appeared at the library last year, in the moving Gettysburg: One Woman's War, three stories by Pennsylvania author Elsie Singmaster. The Chicago-born and New Jersey – based LaRue tours nationally with her unique repertoire of century-old American TALES WELL TOLD. Audiences in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and New York have exclaimed, “What you offer is priceless”; “You had us on the edge of our seats”; “I will never look at shadows quite the same way again!”

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1852 – 1930), a popular and prolific short-story writer, was born and lived most of her life in Massachusetts, continuing her work after marrying and moving to Metuchen, New Jersey.  She wrote insightfully and with sympathetic humor about her fellow small-town New Englanders—and she penned many ghost stories.  Elia Wilkinson Peattie (1862 – 1935) grew up in her native Michigan. With her husband, a fellow journalist, she made her home, first in Chicago, then in Omaha. She was the Chicago Tribune’s first woman reporter and wrote fiction, as well as observant editorials and reviews, for major papers in both cities.

Michèle LaRue has delighted in performing literature from America’s Gilded Age, for nearly 30 years. Her 600 sponsors have included Washington’s Smithsonian Institution; Chicago’s Newberry Library; New York’s Mohonk Mountain House, the Missouri History Museum—and scores of New Jersey libraries. She is a member of both actors’ unions: Actors’ Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA. As a writer and editor, she has collaborated on several notable theatre books—from The Story of 42nd Street to Memories of a Munchkin.

“I love enacting these old TALES,” LaRue declares. “Their authors expected them to be read aloud, like little plays. They were family entertainment long before the radio and they still entrance audiences: adults light up like children at story time. Despite TV and films, the Internet and CGI, we still crave to simply listen to a tale well told.”

For more about Michèle LaRue’s TALES WELL TOLD, visit http://michelelarue.com and http://missouriwomen.org/category/women/michele-larue/.