The Victorian Preservation Association presents “The Darker Side of Dickens”. You are all familiar with Dickens’s homey Christmas stories, but did you know that Charles Dickens wrote some darker and more gothic tales?

The VPA invites you to attend a reading of Dickens’s darker side on Friday, October 27. 2018. Doors open at 7:00pm and the program will begin at 7:30pm. The event will take place at the American Legion at 1504 Minnesota Ave. in San Jose. Tickets for the performance will be $25 for Front Row VIP seats and $20 for general admission. Refreshments will also be available for purchase at the event. See below on how to purchase tickets.

This event is a fund-raiser for the VPA. Victorian garb encouraged!

Portraying Charles Dickens will be Robert Young. If you’ve ever visited the Dickens Fair in San Francisco, you likely will have met him. He has been playing Mr. Dickens and amazing audiences for over 20 years.
Robert grew up in a musical family – his mother a violinist, his sister a pianist. They made sure he was exposed to performance art of all sorts. His mother placed him in his first theatrical production at the age of four. Being the lead Candy Cane was a revelation.

He reflects that it was the excellent teachers and mentors throughout high school and college that lead him to the stage door. Like most serious theater students, his training under their guidance included speech, oral interpretation, voicing, acting, music and dance – the body as multidimensional instrument.

Right out of college, Robert discovered improv–coupled with historical reenactment–and was smitten. He is most inspired by the opportunity to breathe life into historical writing, whether it be Shakespeare, Dickens, Dylan Thomas, great poetry, right through to modern playwrights who are saying what we need to hear – putting before us what we need to see.