paper chairs and The Berkshire County Historical Society present “Poor Herman”

Herman Melville’s great-great-great granddaughter, Austin playwright Elizabeth Doss, uses the author as a subject to speculate on the line between utter genius and epic failure in us all. Doss originally came to Arrowhead in 2017 to perform the play as a staged reading. Seven years later she presents a fully staged performance with an all female cast.

Poor Herman unearths the life of Herman Melville, who arguably wrote America’s best and worst novels back-to-back in 1850 and 1851. The production considers what compelled Melville, struggling to salvage his declining reputation while trying to feed a growing family, to write a virtually unreadable book, Pierre or the Ambiguities, in the aftermath of Moby Dick’s initial failure with critics and readers. The play gives voice to the unsung people in his life, chiefly his mother, wife, sisters, and daughters who each contributed to his fame and flourishing and endured his decline and demise. While hindsight now celebrates his achievements, this production will investigate what it cost him to make history.

“Poor Herman is a beautiful, fresh theatrical experience” – David Glen Robinson, CTX Live Theatre

About Elizabeth Doss

Elizabeth Doss is a writer, performer, director, and playwright in Austin, Texas. She is a Co-artistic director of the theatre collective Paper Chairs, which has produced developmental productions and world premieres of her original plays Murder Ballad Murder Mystery, Hillcountry Underbelly, Mast, Poor Herman, and Catalina de Erauso. Doss holds a BA in Spanish and an MFA in Playwriting, both from the University of Texas at Austin.

Tickets can be purchased by using the BOOK NOW button at berkshirehistory.org.

$25 for BCHS members
$30 for non-members
$45 Poor Herman ticket and tour of Arrowhead
$10 EBT card holders
12 and under free