A single red light cloaked the small stage as quintessential Halloween music hummed to set a chilling mood.

An audience gathered Friday night at the Public Theatre of Kentucky, 545 Morris Alley in Bowling Green, to watch “American Haunting,” a presentation of William Faulkner’s “A Rose For Emily,” Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.”

Carol Jordan, a Bowling Green resident and director of “The Lottery,” said the plays are classic works of “creepy” American literature.

“There are three different visions of horror,” she said.

“American Hauntings” runs until Nov. 1. Show times are Thursdays at 7 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m.

Tickets are $13 for adults and $10 for students and seniors. The show is rated PG-13.

The show begins with “A Rose For Emily,” which is set in Jefferson, Miss. in the 1930s. The townspeople, through flashbacks, tell the tragic story of Miss Emily Grierson, played by Bowling Green resident Harper Lee.

In a charming southern drawl, they warn that young Emily wasn’t like other people. She was a shut-in who lost her one true love. After Emily’s death, the town was dreadfully curious to see what she had been hoarding in her big house for so many years.

Just as the townspeople were unprepared for what they would find in the house, the audience gasped too at the final shock of the play and then erupted into applause.

Lee said the high quality of the production makes the play strong.

“As actors, we could really dig into the role and challenge ourselves,” she said. “This is one of the most talented casts I’ve ever worked with.”

“The Tell-Tale Heart,” the second play in the show, centers on a nervous man, played by Tripp York, who is paranoid about a murder he committed and hears his dinner guests and the police say things that mirror his thoughts.

The unrelenting thumping of the dead man’s heartbeat that only he can hear grows louder and louder until it drives him insane.

Bowling Green junior Joseph Upchurch said he’s read some of the plays in the show during high school and college.

“I’ve seen ‘Tell-Tale Heart’ a couple times; I liked how this was portrayed differently,” he said.

Clock tower bells rang, signaling the start of “The Lottery.” Townspeople gathered in the village square for an annual tradition of drawing slips of paper that decide who will live and who will die.

“It’s the way it’s always been done,” said Old Man Warner, a character in the play.

Ashley Gentry, a Bowling Green resident and director of “A Rose For Emily,” said the theater has done shows such as “Dracula” and “Frankenstein” during the Halloween season in previous years.

She said “American Hauntings” is appropriate for the season.

“These plays have everything — drama, a little comedy, suspense, and you get the willies,” Gentry said.