Ghost Light - Ghost Light The Haunting

Have you ever been betrayed?

Screwed over by a friend, a boss, a lover?

Do you wait for “karma” to get them?

NO! You want revenge. NOW.

Even if you’re DEAD.

GHOST LIGHT – a recipe for revenge

Take one part Japan’s most famous ghost story –

Add a handful of ambitious New York actors –

Toss in a soupçon of Macbethian plot twists –

Pour all into Manhattan’s most notorious haunted apartment –

Shake well, and watch it bubble!

Written by award winning playwright, Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei.

Produced and Directed by EMMY winner Penny Bergman.

Co-conceived by Penny Bergman and Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei.

Produced by La Luna Productions.

YOTSUYA GHOST TALES, the kabuki (classical Japanese theater) play based on the legend of a horribly betrayed woman named Oiwa, was our first inspiration. A perennial favorite in Japan, it has been adapted into at least 30 films and continues to influence anime and Japanese horror movies.

MACBETH, one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays, has some surprising parallels to YOTSUYA KAIDAN. Like Oiwa’s faithless husband, Macbeth is seduced into evil by unbridled ambition and tormented by the ghosts of those he murdered. The supernatural is everywhere…

GHOST LIGHT fuses elements of these masterpieces to create a completely original spine-tingling, brilliantly theatrical new work.

Funded by generous grants from the UCLA Academic Senate Council on Research and the Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies.

Our Original Story

The year is 2010. Japanese-American actress, Keiko (Kay) Tamiya, descendant of the original Oiwa, gives birth to a baby girl AND wins a Primetime Emmy all on the same day. Her husband and co-star, Bryan Eamon Quinn, also nominated, loses out to his arch rival. Kay and Bryan are riding high as America’s favorite couple with an unbreakable contract binding them together — love, devotion, and partners at home…

When both are offered the leads in MACBETH on Broadway, Bryan’s thrill at playing the role of a lifetime is dashed by Keiko’s disgust at the director’s concept for Lady Macbeth: a stereotypical, derogatory depiction of Asian women. Keiko rejects the job and wants Bryan to stand in solidarity and give up his plum part as well.

The Collaboration

Although La Luna’s Penny Bergman (Producing Artistic Director and Emmy winner) and Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei (prize-winning playwright) have each presented international hybrid pieces in venues around the world independently, this is their first collaboration.