On a blustery autumn night in 1848, a young woman named Maggie Fox and her sister, Katie, invented Spiritualism.
What began in an upstate New York farmhouse as a private conversation between the Fox sisters and the ghost of a murdered peddler quickly developed into a cult that swept North America and Europe. Soon people from every station and walk of life were meeting in front parlours, hotel ballrooms and theatres to commune with the spirits, who “spoke” to them by knocking on the wooden séance tables. As the must illustrious mediums of their day (thanks to the entrepreneurial flair of the third sister, the irrepressible Leah), Maggie and Katie Fox reigned supreme over this phantasmagoric domain.
The famous impresario. Shrewd, energetic, affable, with a keen appreciation of business and pleasure. 40’s.
A Rochester gentleman in his mid-30’s. Smitten with and slightly afraid of Leah.
A young, one-handed sailor whose life was saved by Kane: hence, his grateful and devoted follower.
Maggie’s adoring kid sister.
Maggie’s shrewish older sister. Ruthless, opportunistic, resourceful - a female Barnum.
A modest country girl who is convinced that she is “no one special” until she is chosen by the spirits. Then, a strong woman dedicated to a life and cause beyond the social conventions of her time.
The girls’ father. A worn-out dirt farmer, old before his time.
His wife, who has bequeathed some of her bitchiness to Leah. Fed up with poverty.
Malodorous but loveable old drunk. Hydesville clown.
The most eligible of the Hydesville bumpkin bachelors.
Kane’s closest friend and confidante; a snobbish young gentleman of Philadelphia.
Katie’s husband, handsome and refined.
Lead character. Moneyed, sophisticated, educated, he has explored the Arctic but not his own heart.
His upper-crust parents.
An aggressive opponent of Spiritualism
The aristocratic wife of the ill-fated explorer.
Barnum’s prize, an opera singer whom he bills as “The Swedissh Nightingale”.
Refined and well-spoken; the voice of reason.
Irish and burly.
Ancestor of Emily; the most formidable and sought-after hostess of New York society.
Bible-thumping purveyor of blood and thunder.
Seething sexuality beneath a bland exterior. Lolita in nineteenth-century hick town.
A 10-ear old who hated taking piano lessons from Leah.
Ichabod Crane-like schoolmaster of Hydesville.
Prim and pretty.
Ringleader of Hydesville youths.
PLUS: townspeople, séance sitters, revelers at Hotel gala, et cetera.
On a blustery autumn night in 1848, a young woman named Maggie Fox and her sister, Katie, invented Spiritualism.
Knock! is the musical life and times of Maggie Fox. It chronicles the flowering of her career during the heyday of Spiritualism, and follows her then-scandalous love affair with the socialite Arctic explorer, Elisha Kent Kane. It is a musical peopled by the famous and the obscure, the gullible and the shrewd, by mystics and mediums, fakers and frauds, and businessmen of every moral shade.
Above all, it is the story of two strong people whose reach exceeds their grasp.
