GREENFIELD — The Greenfield High School Drama Club is taking a new direction this fall with its production of “Nightfall: With Edgar Allan Poe.”

The play is a unique offering from the club, which typically does not have a fall production. Additionally, the subject matter, which involves interpretations of three different stories by Poe, is a change of pace from the club’s last play, “The Somewhat True Story of Robin Hood.”

“Last [spring], ‘Robin Hood’ was very comedic; it was very slapstick, very Monty Python-esque, which was a lot of fun,” said Anna Hartmann, a French teacher at Greenfield High School and co-director of “Nightfall.” “But we got feedback from the students that for the next play, they wanted to go in a more serious, dramatic direction.”

“Nightfall: With Edgar Allan Poe” was published by playwright Eric Coble in 2004. It is broken into three parts based on Poe’s stories “The Raven,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” which has allowed the club to divide up rehearsals in a way that is “much easier to work with than one single, long, full play,” according to Hartmann.

Hartmann and Deborah Potee, the other co-director of the play and adjustment counselor at Greenfield High School, settled on “Nightfall” because of Poe’s own history in New England, its themes being a good fit for fall, and as a catalyst for introducing students to more variety in theater.

“[Poe] has a lot of history rooted in New England. It is the fall, so something a little more macabre was appealing,” Hartmann said. “We decided to go with something more focused on the dark corners of the human psyche, while still being appropriate for a high school audience and a high school cast.”

According to the co-directors, the cast has enjoyed working with the darker material. Camden Toponce, a senior at Greenfield High School and actor in the play, said, “It’s pretty cool seeing how the [Drama Club] has been able to adapt to a much more grim environment.”

But the production hasn’t been without challenges.

“It’s hard for them to know exactly what is being said. We’ve went over it again and again, what certain words mean and why they are saying it, and trying to get the tone,” Potee said. “It’s a demanding play for the actors and maybe our audience, too.”

Toponce agrees the play is challenging when it comes to individual lines, but regardless, “it’s been a cool experience.”

Potee hopes that “Nightfall” can attract an audience that appreciates the play’s complex 19th-century language and themes.

“This is just very serious, hopefully a little spooky and scary, and it also has very rich and complicated language, so I hope that people who come can appreciate the amount of dialogue that students will have memorized, and they will appreciate the complexity of this 19th-century author who is the originator of the horror story in America,” Potee said.

“I want people to really feel those darker emotions and really think about the play while they watch it,” added Toponce. “I want people to be immersed in the story. I hope that the audience is immersed, because it is a wonderful play.”

The production will also be using a blackbox seating style, where roughly 50 seats will be set up on the stage, allowing a limited audience to have a close-up view of “Nightfall,” providing an interesting visual perspective and a unique auditory experience.

“There’s lots of light changes and sounds involved in this. … Chimes, creaking doors, coffins being ripped open and flashing lights,” Potee explained. “So, [‘Nightfall’] will be a kind of auditory experience, too.”

The play will have three showings: 7 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 14, and 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 15. Hartmann and Potee recommend people reserve tickets due to the low seating capacity. Tickets can be reserved by sending an email to ghsdramaclubtickets@gmail.com. Payments will be made at the door via cash or check. Tickets for attendees under 18 will be $5 and for adults ages 18 and older will be $10.

Hartmann and Potee recommend that children younger than middle school age not attend the play due to its subject matter.