On July 26th, 2004, Poe was presented at the Cherry Lane Theater for an audience of family and friends. This was the first time the authors were able to see the entire show read and sung as a cohesive unit. It was a simple table reading with no sets and with the stage directions read out.

Our goal was to get a feel for the pacing and how the story flowed. We were also interested in the feedback from the audience.

The reading was a resounding success. Everyone who attended had a great time and provided us with some very valuable feedback. We learned that the show had a lot of potential but needed work. The pacing was too slow and some of the songs were long. There was a need for some lighter numbers to balance the darkness of the show. Finally, there was a desire to see more of Poe and his works and how they related to his life.

We were given a great deal of encouragement and set out to rectify all of the issues we identified. It was decided to take some time and do some serious rewrites. We felt confident that we had a great show but we needed to refine it. And so back to work.