Although Halloween is over, it is still spooky season at Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Ghost Stories. One of the four works in this mixed-bill repertoire, showing now until Sunday, Nov. 15, is Principal Dancer Kyle Davis’ The Raven. Based on Edgar Allen Poe’s famous poem, this mournful tale of grief provides both fright and delight.

The “trick” part of The Raven is the musical arrangement for the obscure classical music piece that Davis chose was like a ghost—not in plain sight, haunting him for over a decade. He was so drawn to Czech composer pianist Alexander Dreyschock’s Morceau de concert, Op. 27 when he first heard it in 2012 that he knew he wanted to create something with it. But finding the score proved more difficult than he anticipated, so he shelved his plans for many years.

When mounting this new work, Davis, who is retiring at the end of PNB’s 2026-27 season, finally found the impetus to increase his search efforts. He felt this virtually forgotten romantic work from 1843, filled with sorrow and drama, would be the perfect musical companion to this story and his choreography.

Enlisting PNB Music Librarian Mona Butler, they eventually found it at Edwin A. Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Not only is it home to one of North America’s largest collections of sheet music, coincidentally, it also houses the most significant Edgar Allan Poe collections, including his only complete, handwritten manuscript of The Raven.

The “treat” parts of Davis's ballet are many, including that PNB audiences are the first to see The Raven and first to hear their orchestra play Morceau de concert live since Dreyschock did in the 1840s. See it by this weekend or “Nevermore!” (at least this season).

Ghost Stories also includes George Balanchine’s haunting tale La Sonnambula and Alejandro Cerrudo’s moody Silent Ghost and “cheeky” (if you see it, you will know what this means) PACOPEPEPLUTO. Tickets to Ghost Stories are available by calling the PNB Box Office: (206) 441-2424; online at PNB.org; or in person at 301 Mercer Street.