17TH ANNUAL EDWARDIAN BALL on January 21, 2017 in San Francisco, CA : The 17th Edwardian Ball returns to the Regency Ballroom Friday and Saturday, January 20 and 21, 2017. This year the living interpretation and celebration of the stories of the late-great macabre cult author, comic artist, illustrator and cartoonist Edward Gorey revels in even darker black comedy and ominous gothic intrigue, suspense and mystery with the theme of Murder, as illustrated by this year's featured Gorey tale, “The Deadly Blotter.” Unconventional and unusual, eccentric and esoteric, and peculiar and particular in this intriguing and raucous whodunit, the guidelines are defined and redefined by the attendees, all of whom are either sleuths or suspects in hilarious homicidal hijinks.
For the uninitiated, The Edwardian Ball presents a unique blend of live music, theatre, fashion, circus, fine art, riveting stage shows, literature, ballroom dancing, DJs, and character play into a whirlwind, enticing extravaganza. Set in a romanticized, gilded and gentile Neo-Victorian and Edwardian-era, a gothic and steampunk-tinged distant past intertwines with an elegantly imagined future. Other darkly decadent and delightful attractions include our award-winning Vendor Bazaar, Portrait Booth, Museum of Wonders, locally distilled absinthe cocktails, Saturday Afternoon Tea Service, steam-powered art & installations, parlour games, alluring sideshows, and much more. All ages are welcome in this kindly interactive environment.
Gorey is considered a ground-breaking, genre–defying and critically-acclaimed graphic novelist who is credited with influencing Charles “Addams Family” Addams, Lemony Snicket, Neil Gaiman (Coraline and Day of the Dead), Rob Reger (Emily the Strange), Alison Bechdel, (Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama and Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic), and Tim Burton (Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, and Beetlejuice).
This multi-city, multi-media exposition of the eccentric and esoteric has grown over the past sixteen years from an underground club party into an ...read more