We gave the production a three night run in the Little Theater March 8th-11th.
Directed by CJ Fischer, assistant directed by Mrs. Romanowski and Mr. Schaefer. Student directed by Lucas Kreitler and Robin Lane. Stage managed by Caroline Siede. Technical direction provided by Mr. Schaefer and all of the technical theatre classes.
We sold out everynight and hand standing room only for the last night! HUGE SUCCESS for the department!
The leading players come forward in the last moments
of our production of Dracula in the Little Theater
What a journey this was for ur deapartment. We couldn't have chosen a more challenging show for the tech students, our creative team, and the actors involved.
Dracula (the play) is an adaptation, first published in 1996, by American playwright by Steven Dietz of Bram Stoker's novel by the same name. Though it has never run on Broadway, the author lists it among his most financially successful works.
The text was very lyrical and very poetic at times. It is truly a beautiful script for sure, and it really gave the cast a run for their money. Memorizing the dialogue was the just the beginning, the students also had to find a genuine and natural interpretation and delivery with an almost shakespearing dialogue. We always love the rigor involved when we get to dive into such work of theater and this really made us sweat.
Program cover for the show
"I want your fear. For your fear, like a current, rushes through your body. Your fear makes your heart pound, it render's your veins rich and full. Your fear hemorrages deliciously within you."- Dracula
Chris Sears (as Dracula) finally ending the life of his servant
Renfield (played by Jack Bourgeois)
CJ was a huge movie buff and Dracula was a project he dreamed about doing and we knew it would be a hit just by title, so it seemed a perfect opportunity to get some fresh blood in the director's chair and let the students tackle something from the horror genre. (they alwayys love that!)
Setting: London, England and Transylvania
TIME: 1897
SYNOPSIS:
Closely following the plot of the novel, the play chronicles Dracula's journey to England, his stalking of two young women, and his pursuit and eventual defeat by the heroines' suitors and their associates.
The T-shirt design for the show by Brennan Eller
THE SET
The technical theater classes lovd working on this one! We spent several months reading, analyzing and researching, designing and finally constructing this extremely complex and elaborate play.
The design for Lucy's bedroom (scene 2)
The play takes the audience on a very extensive journey and into many locations. The shows requires the designers to come up with a very versatile set that accomodates quick changes and some moments of special FX and trickery.
Mina (Ashley Buck) and Lucy (Julianne Towers)
speaking to the maid (Erin Carmody)
and Brennan Eller (as Van Helsing)
Lucy and Dr. Sweward discuss marriage...
We had to get really clever to fit it all on that stage!
The bedroom's for both scene's shared units, and we simply designed a rotating window unit that had diffrent distiguishing features for each room's decor, and we designed two different headboards for the bed. For each scene we flipped their placement on the stage. So each room had a different layout as well.
- Different colors used in the wood graining and wash
- Different window treatments
- Shutters on one and not the other
- the comforters were swapped (one red tones and one white)
Mina's bedroom in the second act
The WG Little Theater is an awesome space for inimate theater being a house of only 180 (or so) and it also provides some great opportunity to use the voms and bring actors into the house.
Renfield was locked in an insane asylum and we played those scenes on the apron DSR, and we used some small suggestive set pieces to take us in the dank cell.
Jack Bourgeois (as Renfield), Scott McDonald and Jake
Fruend as the attendants and Sam Holden Dr. Seward
Other locations we had to visit in the show:
- A shipping port
- A cemetary tomb
- Dracula's mansion
Going in for the final kill
Ian Carlson as Jonathon Harker and Brennan Eller as Van Helsing
striking lucy down in her tomb while she goes to sleep
LIGHTING
We had a lot of rich saturated color on the show, and we used very strong contrast in our warms and cools. The fantasy element of the show also pushed us to make bold choices.
All of the regular scenes were put in a very rich amber to make the audience feel like we were looking into the past. It almost felt like a sepia-toned vintage photograph.
Mina leading the trip to Dracula's mansion in England
We also used the followspot to highlight a character in a scene when we needed the rest of the stage in color. The Little Theater is very limited in regards to lighting and we pulled off some beautiful stage pictures.
SOME DESIGNWORK FOR THE SHOW
A cemetary set piece by Jesses Austin The steering wheel for the sailor scene
A Draft of the orignal concept for the last scene A sketch of the tree/moon effect for lights
A couple of sketches for the bed unit "Skippy's" designs for the bone chair
OTHER Tech Challenges
We had to build some additional items to help with the effects for the show.
- A moon on a pulley system to allow for quick changes
- Dry ice machine and tubing system for the masion scnenes
and graveyards
- A chandelier that flys in
- A bone chair
- Blood transfusion machine
- Lots of fake Garlic
MAKE-UP
Everyone loves to get made-up like a vampire, and we had 5 vampires everynight. We got to play with full character make-up and fantasy faces.
The vampire make-up crew had their hands full with whiting out the whole face, applying veins, dark eyeliners, shadowing and reddening around the eyes with blushes, putting in fake teeth and adding any blood.
COSTUMES
A wonderful opportunity for the creative team to work with a period show, and the late 1800's is such a fun and exciting time in European fashion.
The Men's - coats, hats and vest were all fun for the cast to wear and they gave the show a really cool vintage feel.
The Woman's - corsettes, hats, shawls and dresses also made for a great period look. They also made the actresses use proper posture.
THE CAST
(in alphabetical order)
Jack Bourgeois..............................Renfield
Ashley Buck...................................Mina
Maddie Byrne................................A vixen
Ian Carlson....................................Jonathon Harker
Erin Carmody...............................The maid
Annie Crites...................................A vixen
Brennan Eller................................Van Helsing
Jake Fruend...................................Attendant
Sam Holden...................................Dr. Seward
Grace Knobbe...............................A Vixen
Natalie Lester................................A vampire
Kate Lilly.......................................A vampire
Scott McDonald............................Attendant
Geoff Peasall.................................Butler/Dead sailor
Jodie Schutt...................................A vampire
Chris Sears....................................Dracula
Julianne Towers............................Lucy
THE CREW
Lights......................................Mr. Schaefer
Peter Schweiss (Op)
Followspot..............................Anne Romer
Sound......................................Jack Newsham
Costumes.................................Mrs. Romanowski
Louis Love
Anne Romar
Music Composer......................Jessica Winkler
Violinist...................................Sarah Hughes
Make-up Chief.........................Kate Lilly
Make-up Crew.........................Natalie Lester
Jodie Schutt
Hillary Bird
Props Mistress.........................Laura Mitchler
Props Crew..............................Ellen Klemm
Jacob Strain
Erika Farver
Dry Ice Op...............................Aaron Taylor
Curtain Puller..........................Ali Suhre
Fog Op....................................Caitlyn Ward
Moon Op.................................Sarah Manuel
Master Carpenter.....................Rob RineySet builders/painters................All tech classes
Katie Ibur
Trevor Smith
Louis Hayes
Becca Theerman
Stevie Trembley
Anna Fedde
Kaitlin Suhre
Anne Romer
Louise Love
Kevin Clark
Megan Navia
House Managers.....................Ryanne Fields
Charlotte GrubbsLobby Movie..........................Ryan Cummings
Special Thanks
Debbie Genovese, Cyndy Gilbert, Tech Classes, mass Media Classes, Highway 61 Roadhouse, The ArtLoft Space, The Dryice Co., The WGHS Custodial Staff, WGHS Admin, All of our drama parents, and the Drama-mamas!
AND everyone else who helped bring
this production to the Little Theater stage,
we couldn't have done any
of this without your help and support!
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Watch a video montage
of our production
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