If you’re looking for a different way to get your Halloween on this weekend, I offer the suggestion of New Edgecliff Theatre’s “Sweet Suspense” radio theater event at the Columbia Performance Center (3900 Eastern Ave., Columbia-Tusculum) at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. This year it features adaptations of two Edgar Allen Poe tales of terror by the company’s resident playwright, Catie O’Keefe. These dark, chilling stories, “The Oval Portrait” and “The Masque of the Red Death,” will be presented with all the trappings and ambience of an old-time radio program, complete with live sound effects provided by Mike Martini of WMKV-FM. Assuming that your appetite hasn’t been dampened by the first of the tales, this one-night event will have an extended intermission offering a dessert buffet with items from area restaurants and bakeries (that accounts for the “sweet” part of the evening’s title).
