When I think about Edgar Allen Poe, which I don’t do often, the words terror and psychological torture come to mind — and suffering, too. His writing has a way of unhinging the human psyche to reveal the darkness that resides in all humans. These are things we fear the most, the things we keep buried out of our conscious minds, so that we can live a relatively peaceful and un-haunted life. But these are the things that Poe exploits in his writings mostly because these are the things that scare us to life and make great stories. This is a good thing.

“Cask of Amontillado.”

“Cask,” described as a high-art haunted house, is an evening of mini performances based on and/or inspired by Poe’s classic short story “The Cask of Amontillado.” In “The Cask of Amontillado,” Montreor murders his friend Fortunado. He walls him up and buries him alive, which is probably a very unpleasant and torturous way to die. So much for friendship. “The Cask of Amontillado” examines the sadistic side of hu(man). What’s sinister and new about this “Cask” is that Montresor is recast as a woman.

As the audience enters the performance space at 6th Street Container, they’ll be greeted by the gradiose hostess, played by Aisha Sofia Duran, who invites the audience to attend a private dinner party. From this moment, the audience will enter a world in which nothing is as it appears. Rainer Davies and Dion Keith Kerr IV will guide the audience through the plot of the story with their musical compositions, as dancers Marissa Alma Nick and Pioneer Winter bring the story to life.

“Cask” will be a 17-minute, site-specific performance running October 26th that combines dance, theatre, music and the visual arts. If you’ve been to the Micro Theater Miami at the Centro Cultural Espanol, “Cask” will run in a similar fashion with a schedule of rotating performances throughout the evening from 8-11 p.m.

“Cask” runs October 26th 2012 at the 6th Street Container Alternative Art Space, 1155 SW 6th St., Miami, 305-560-1150; 6thstreetcontainer.com. Gate opens at 7 p.m. Show times: 8 p.m., 9 p.m., 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. Tickets are $10 per person and will be available at the door only.