Key West’s Strangest Love Story Goes National

Local Writer/Musician Ben Harrison’s book, Undying Love, is being featured on the radio show, This American Life

Writer/musician/playwright Ben Harrison will be featured this weekend on the nationally syndicated radio program, This American Life, telling the true macabre story of Key West’s own “Count” Carl von Cosel and his passion that defied death, for an episode titled “Grand Gestures”. Von Cosel achieved international fame in 1940 when the corpse of his true love (and former tuberculosis patient) Elena Milagro Hoyos was discovered in his secluded house on Flagler Ave., where he’d kept her preserved for seven long and amorous years. In 1997 Harrison penned the definitive account of this bizarre story in his nonfiction book, Undying Love.

Also released this month will be the unabridged audio production of the book, and on Valentine’s Day 2018, he will bring the revised stage version back to life at The Studios of Key West. Originally performed in 1999, Undying Love: The Musical features original tunes like “She Was Pickled and He Poked Her” alongside the haunting “La Boda Negra” (Black Wedding), which von Cosel claimed Elena sang to him from the crypt.

Harrison’s musical distills the atmosphere of Key West in the 1930’s, and perfectly melds his signature dry humor with the pathos of von Cosel’s tale. Veteran Director Richard Grusin and Musical Director Larry Baeder will lead the production, details of which can be found on The Studios’ website.

“Perhaps the strangest thing about von Cosel’s story – and that’s saying a lot – is that the public at large heard it and decided it was a love story,” says Harrison. “So it’s only fitting that the radio show’s coming out just before Valentine’s Day.”

Ben Harrison’s featured segment on This American Life will be released nationally online February 12th at 8 p.m. EST, at www.thisamericanlife.org and on the Podcast at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/this-american-life/id201671138?mt=2&uo=4&at=11l6oU. It will also air locally on WLRN at 10 a.m. Sunday, February 12.

The one of a kind musical production will appear at The Studios February 14 – March 3, 2018.

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