July 16th, 1923
Dear Mr. Redford,
I hope this letter finds you well. I am the owner of The Gilded Greek Theater in Mourningport, Massachusetts and a longtime producer of many of its shows. I am writing to you today to ask you for the great honor of putting on your most recent play. I understand you’ve historically been against selling the scripts you’ve written, but if your stories are as powerful and hypnotic as the plays you directed in your prime, I have no doubt they could be a fantastic entrepreneurial and artistic opportunity. After all, what is a show for if it isn’t performed for all to see? The Greek is a small theater, but we could surely work out a deal that would satisfy you monetarily. Please inform me as soon as you’ve come to a decision.
Regards,
Edwin Peck
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July 7th, 1924
Dear Mr. Redford,
What a pleasant surprise to hear from you after all this time. I suppose when a man becomes as respected and independent as Crawley Redford himself, correspondence becomes one of the many trivialities of life in modern society. My theater and I are saddened to learn of your reluctance to sell us your script. I understand your concern, as actors are a very superstitious lot, but I can assure you the Gilded Greek Theater is one of the safest of its size. I would know – I oversaw the construction myself. Just this last year, Roger Ives directed an acclaimed production of Macbeth, in which the fabled curse of the Scottish play took no effect. In truth, this last year was somewhat difficult for us, and by giving us an opportunity to advertise a show with your name attached, you may be saving a small business and several jobs. Please give your writing assistant (or muse, whichever they may prefer) my contact information and I will attempt to make a case to them as well.
Regards,
Edwin Peck
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July 8th, 1924
Dear Mr. Redford,
I hope you didn’t take my comments on the time it took you to respond as an insult. Whether you did or not, I must admire the uncanny speed with which you’ve answered my most recent letter. You tell me you are hesitant to sell the Gilded Greek your most recent show because of the “potential for risk of life or wellbeing through enhanced emotions and the ever-blurring lines of reality” created by the stories of your so-called muse. I understand the fear of not knowing how an audience may react to a show, or even the tragedy of actors becoming lost in their roles, but I can once again remind you of the close eye with which I keep watch over any production put on at my venue, and assure you all major events or oddities of the day will be recorded and reported back to you in a letter handwritten by yours truly. Roger Ives just finished directing his vision of Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein and is looking for a good follow-up. I think one of your works could be the gothic, emotional tour de force that he is looking for.
Regards,
Edwin Peck
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July 9th, 1924
Dear Mr. Redford,
I cannot express to you how delighted I, Mr. Ives, or the rest of the cast and crew of the Gilded Greek Theater were to see the envelope containing your script for The Eye of Somnirius. While more than one copy of the script would’ve been preferable, I’ve explained to everyone that you rented it to us on the condition that we would not read through more than one scene a week, putting us on track for a show between September and November. A strange superstition to be sure, but I’m willing to entertain the notion that this is to prevent the actors from “emotional overexertion.” Cast and crew alike were willing to accept this without question except for Nick Andros, a boy who works our light riggings, who agreed after some convincing. We are going to get started as soon as we can, and I will be sure to keep you updated on our progress.
Regards,
Edwin Peck
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July 11th, 1924
Dear Mr. Redford,
As per your request, we read only one scene of your show and – what a tease! What suspense! If I were not so inclined to treat your skill with the utmost respect, I would say your one-scene limit is almost cruel. Needless to say, the rest of the workers at the Gilded Greek were equally enraptured, to the point where Nick Andros was ready to lead a crew mutiny to read to the end of the act! Now naturally I joke, all of my employees hold nothing but loyalty, and tomorrow we will be rehearsing the next scene of the show. Be sure to thank your mystery muse again on our behalf. If all is well with you, I will be stepping away from the letter-writing desk to focus on overseeing the production, but I am sure I will be in touch with you soon.
Regards,
Edwin Peck
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July 15th, 1924
Dear Mr. Redford,
I write to you with uneasy news. Nick Andros, the light boy whose name has graced our discussions more than once, seems to have been possessed with the unexplainable fervor of a regular fanatic. The boy has never had the soul of a creative, opting instead for the more physical art that is stage work. On this day, however, he went on a rather off-putting tangent about the beauty of your work and the stage. Nick was using words to describe your show of a far greater education than I believe he ever received, and to an extent that made rehearsal difficult. We asked the boy to wait outside the theater, and on leaving we saw through the glass door that he had been simply standing and facing the box office without moving or speaking. When I asked what the boy was doing, he simply muttered: “The eye was so beautiful.”
What could this mean?
Please respond soon,
Edwin Peck
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July 16th, 1924
Dear Mr. Redford,
I’m writing this in response to your questions about Nick Andros’ further behavior. After taking him aside to try and find out more, he admitted to me that he had broken into the Gilded Greek to steal the copy of The Eye of Somnirius so he could finish the play. He had stayed there all night, and upon realizing that people were entering for the next day’s work fled out the window. I have never seen this kind of behavior from the boy before the play began production. I’ll be discussing with Roger Ives over what action we will be taking against Nick in the future. He’s a fine young man and one of our longest working crewmates, but to break the rules that were laid out by you so explicitly, presents itself as a problem that we don’t want to be furthered later.
I will follow up after further discussion.
Edwin Peck
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July 16th, 1924
Dear Mr. Redford,
I don’t know how you received that letter or sent your response so quickly, but your tone was alarming. What did you mean by referring to the play as an eldritch threat to the boy’s life? It’s simply paper and ink, isn’t it? I’ve understood your work has garnered controversy among the church for its references to the occult, but I never took that to be anything more than the average stage rumor, being much less superstitious than my creative counterpart Roger Ives. Your letter’s warning tone felt more like a threat than anything, and if you have any sinister confessions to make, I strongly suggest you do it soon.
Respond with haste,
Edwin Peck
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July 18th, 1924
Mr. Redford,
I don’t know if you received my last letter, but it is crucial for you to respond as quickly as possible if you did. Nick Andros’ condition has only gotten worse. He wrote a copy of your entire play from memory and convinced other members of the cast and crew to read it. They have begun to act hysterical and obsessive similar to Nick – weeping, rambling, the like – and are slowly talking the others into reading the script as well. I confiscated his first copy in the morning, but he had a new one by the lunch break. Roger and I aren’t sure what to do. The people who have read the full script are still doing fine at their jobs, but their incessant fervor is distracting the stable actors. Roger, who is currently in a superstitious panic, wants to fire everyone who had read the script, but I don’t know if we can afford to do that on such short notice. A theater firing half of its cast and crew is not an attractive look to prospective audiences or workers, and I would like a second opinion from you or your so-called “muse,” who, without suggesting blame, has been awfully quiet since this debacle has started. Maybe you should ask them for instructions on where to go from here. I need you to respond as soon as you can. I fear what may be about to happen if I let this get out of control any further than I’ve already allowed.
Edwin Peck
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July 26th, 1924
Mr. Redford,
I write with awful news. Roger talked me into waiting one week for your response before taking the Andros matter into our own hands. I took the boy into my office and told him he would no longer be able to work with us until he had received help and returned to normal. The boy seemed okay with the news until I asked him for his copy of The Eye of Somnirius. The fact that he would no longer be able to spread the word of your black Bible seemed to affect him all at once. With tears beginning to stream from his eyes, he lunged up and grabbed my fountain pen from across the desk. Before I could react, the boy took the pointed tip and jammed it into his neck, carving a wide slit into his throat with an insidiously savage flourish. Immediately I called for help, and Andros was taken to the hospital (although I fear we were too late). Mr. Redford, I don’t know what mystic aberrations you have distilled across your plays, but if this is why you are so hesitant to share your scripts with the world, then I regret ever attempting to convince you to break tradition. Despite my insistence, your responsibility is impossible to write off. What evil muse forces you to write such evil in a medium meant to be distilled to the masses? I gasp as I write this, realizing the other workers, if anything like the boy, are in the process of creating their own copies of your cursed play. Roger is a nervous wreck now, and I have invited him to stay with me at my apartment until this all gets sorted out. I have seen you respond to my letters within a quarter hour which leads me to think your unresponsiveness is a choice. To what end, I do not know. I implore you to help us as soon as you can.
Edwin Peck
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July 31st, 1924
Mr Redford,
This will likely be the last time that you hear from me. On resuming production of your play, which I dare not mention the name of after the death of the poor Andros boy, Roger Ives and I were dismayed to find the members of the cast and crew he had read the rest of the script had been plotting to release their copies to the public in order to “spread the word of the Eye.” An argument ensued between those possessed by the script’s power and Ives and I, as well as a handful of concerned actors. A physical altercation ensued between Ives and Maria DeWitt, the female lead of the show. She tried to attack him, accusing him of “attempting to stifle the beauty of the Eye.” Ives, in panicked self-defense, pushed her back and grabbed at her script. Tugging at the woman’s tight grip, he tore the pages in two and like several clocks striking the witching hour at once, all of those gripped by the Eye cried out in shock in what almost sounded like pain. On seeing her papers destroyed, Maria screamed and, with no warning, ceased to function. Doctors who would later inspect her declared they had no idea what had happened to her; she simply stopped living. In this time, one of our stagehands had the wise thought to telephone the police while Ives and two players engaged the other four in your creation’s clutches. When the police arrived, they were able to subdue three of them, but the fourth escaped. Roger and I are currently investigating the Gilded Greek to see if we can find his dropped script. Whether we do or do not, we have agreed the only way to contain this awful curse is to burn the building to the ground and catch a bus for Connecticut. I urge you, for no sum of money, to ever lend one of your muse’s awful conjurings of the mind to another reader again. I don’t know what keeps you safe from its ramblings, but it is far too strong for the average man. I also encourage you to maintain safety precautions from the fourth possessed, who is still out there and knows who you are. His experience in stage work has made him strong, and I fear what may happen to you if he decides he needs to get his hands on more of your work.
Good luck, goodbye, and I am sorry for the trouble caused by this.
Edwin Peck