Temple Spirit is, at its core, a ghost story…

The play opens in a Japanese tea-house, where Jogen, a priest, seeks directions to an abandoned temple.  The townspeople warn him that the temple is haunted and every priest who has tried to spend a single night, is found dead by morning.  Grappling with demons of his own, Jogen arrives to try and reclaim the place as night falls.  The long, eerie hours of darkness ahead will change him forever.

Temple Spirit weaves together the tales of demons, ghosts and lost souls with an original story line.  Each tale is told with a specific verse or prose style in order to evoke the musicality and mood of the ghostly story.  Like all classic fairy tales, these eerie fables delve into our dreams and fears.  Unfamiliar, yet strangely resonate, they peer into the darkness within all of us.  Jogen wrestles with the impossible question of human dichotomy through the darkest hours of the night.  Is light possible without darkness?  In a culture valuing heroes and warriors, which is greater: our desire for peace…or revenge?  What do we do when our relationships with our enemies shake our very foundations? 

Cast Requirements: 8 characters