Subtle Bodies by Clive Barker at Providence Playhouse – Scranton, PA

Actors Circle presents Subtle Bodies by Clive Barker, directed by Justin Costello, at Providence Playhouse, 1256 Providence Road in Scranton.

Show dates are October 4, 5, 9, 10, 11,12, 2025. Fridays and Saturdays at 7PM. Sundays at 2PM. Tickets, $15 general, $12, seniors. Students are $10. You can also call 570-342-9707

This fall, Actor’s Circle is heading into spooky season with the Pennsylvania Premiere of Clive Barker’s SUBTLE BODIES! Best known for his array of fantastique novels and the horror films HELLRAISER and CANDYMAN, Barker began his career as founding member of The Dog Company, an experimental theatre company in England. During that time, he penned several plays spanning and combining different genres. SUBTLE BODIES is one of them, combining comedy, fantasy and horror in a theatrical epic that only Barker himself could conjure.

SUBTLE BODIES begins with engaged couple Dexter and Carys. On the eve of their wedding, they escape to the Atlantic Hotel, on the northwestern coast of England. The young couple have some very important personal and intimate secrets to iron out if they are to indeed get married. The situation becomes more complicated, and exceedingly more chaotic, the following morning, when the wedding party arrives like a hurricane. Unknown to all of them, the status of the wedding is the least of their problems. Turns out, the new hotel guests’ presences have caught the attention of the mysterious Mr. Foss. Mr. Foss has cavernous secrets of his own. Not only is he a nonsense poet, but he is also a member of the secretive and exclusive Dream Bureau; an organization which shapes and orchestrates humanity’s dreams. Brought to his wits end by the interlopers, Mr. Foss takes matters in his own hands, and forces the hotel guests aboard an apocalyptic communal sea-faring dream; one which will turn them “inside out” and alter all of their lives forever.