Abi Esmena, Tierra London Rush, Meredith Crutcher, and Jordan Trovillion Photo by Mikki Schaffner

They refer to themselves as "The Sisters of Bedlam," referencing a notorious mental institution that often took in women whose families could not cope with their brash personalities and outspoken opinions. Bethany (Tierra London Rush), Nora (Abi Esmena), Emma (Meredith Frankie Crutcher), and Hazel (Jordan Trovillion) are on the run. There's nothing unstable about them: They are articulate and passionate but, finding themselves sheltered in a deteriorated building with a creepy reputation, they begin to question their own sanity after Meredith relates a disturbing tale about "Old Abram Brown" in "a long brown coat," who might have committed suicide in the Ravenside Inn years earlier.

Eerie sounds (Doug Borntrager is the sound designer) and a menacing musical score sustain the mood from start to finish. The music by Jimmie A. Parker Sr. was performed and recorded by a string quartet from Cincinnati's concertnova ensemble. The soundscape constantly renders the four women in a constant state of panic, imagining that a restless spirit is haunting the place.

Snow's script, directed by Caitlin McWethy, has been promoted using a question that playwright Snow formed: "A play about a ghost?" That's certainly the direction the story seems to be heading with shadowy lighting (designed by Charlie Raschke) and a foreboding, dark scenic design (Gabby Trice). Know seldom puts as much detail into a set as this one: The interior of the Ravenside Inn is a shadowy gray space, full of draped antique furniture, a grandfather clock, cobwebs, and swirling mists. The actors enter, clinging to each other, wearing full-length Victorian nightgowns, down steps on the right side of the audience. A large wood-burning stove planted in the middle of the front row of seats emits a flickering glow that illuminates many of the scenes, perfect low illumination for retelling the tale of Abram Brown.

The actors constantly perform at a nervous fever pitch, chattering and shrieking in response to various jump scares prompted by their unnerving surroundings. They speak with well-rehearsed Cockney dialects (coached by Julia Guichard), but there are a few too many moments when their heightened emotions affect intelligibility. The second act begins with a flashback of 20 years to three narrow-minded local men (played by Crutcher, Esmena, and Trovillion) expressing their disdain for Abram Brown. The scene has an emotional arc, but it feels awkwardly inserted as an explanatory gesture.

The characters' mutually supportive interactions provide numerous moments of meaningful conversation about misogyny and racism. Esmena's feisty, quick-tempered Nora favors escaping the seeming terrors Ravenside, while Trovillion's pragmatic Hazel does her best to calm the women's nerves and keep them in a sheltered space. As Emma, Crutcher's lurid storytelling lays the foundation for her friends' fears, and Rush's sensitive Bethany is most vulnerably sympathetic to Abram Brown's plight. She becomes wholly attuned to his circumstances in a breathtaking dual monologue (performed with Phillip Latham) at the show's climax.

Asked in a radio interview what he hoped people might take away from his script, Snow said it's about "dealing with erasure," a theme he feels is every bit as timely today as it might have been in the past. (In fact, Snow was himself haunted by a Benjamin Britten song he performed in a choir in the fifth grade; as a nursery tale and a sung round, it seems to have originated centuries earlier.) The act of remembrance can be powerful, and its obverse is often painful. He hoped his play would serve as a reminder that "you were here," that your existence mattered. That comes through in the final frenzied, danced moments of The Ravenside Occurrence.

Snow's script was commissioned and developed in a workshop production by the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park through its Jerome Fey Play Collective Fund.

The Ravenside Occurrence, produced by Know Theatre of Cincinnati, runs through April 18, 2026, at the David C. Herriman Center for the Performing Arts, 1120 Jackson Street, Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, Cincinnati OH. For tickets and information, please visit knowtheatre.com or call 513-300-5669.