“Playwright Donald Olson debuts a new full-length play about Harry Houdini, based on real-life events and characters.
It’s the 100th anniversary of the death of Harry Houdini, the master illusionist of the 1920s. Tonight, playwright Donald Olson debuts a new full-length play, based on real-life events and characters, in which Houdini hires a young private investigator to help him root out fake mediums and spiritualists who have come to haunt America following the end of World War I and the Spanish Flu epidemic. The investigator encounters a world of deceit and trickery, whose characters prey upon the grief-stricken. When Houdini and the investigator set their sights on the most infamous medium of the era, they both face life-threatening consequences. Harry Houdini and the Great Beyond is a compelling, original play about the interplay between magic, illusion, power, and the mystery of love. Many of Olson’s plays have had their first run at the NAC before going on to national tours.”