Thalian Association lets the vampires off the leash
Updated: 1 hour ago
There are certain things you expect when you hear Dracula: Transylvania, fangs, fog. Maybe a cape, if we're feeling particularly Victorian about it.
A big horror production on the Main Stage of Thalian Hall isn’t likely one of them. But this weekend, Thalian Association Community Theatre will bring Dracula to Thalian Hall, and this version isn't particularly interested in being polite about it.
I recently sat down with Thalian Association's Artistic Director Chandler Davis, Dracula director Joshua Zieseniss, and Wilmington native Amber Briana Moore, who plays one of Dracula's vixens, about what happens when a community theater decides to let the vampires off the leash.
The decision to tackle Bram Stoker's classic came after a couple of pleasant surprises, says Davis. Last year’s run of Rocky Horror proved that Wilmington audiences would turn out for something a little outside the usual community-theater comfort zone. Then Murder on the Orient Express—a straight play, rather than a musical—had a surprisingly strong run.
The takeaway was fairly simple: Maybe audiences are willing to go darker than we give them credit for. And if you're going to test that theory, Dracula seems like a reasonable way to do it.
For Zieseniss, there's also a personal connection. He's wanted to direct on Thalian Hall's main stage for some time, but hadn't found a show that really made him want to take the leap. Then he read Stephen Dietz's adaptation of Dracula, and he felt “like there was such a combination of really a showcase for acting, and also a really big showcase for incredible design.”
That's important, because this Dracula is not being approached as a campy vampire romp. It's horror. Actual horror. There will be blood. There will be bites. There will be people dying on stage. There will also, apparently, be a baby (to be eaten by Amber). The assembled crew said the production team has mentioned the baby so often that, at this point, the prop baby is essentially a cast member and has been named.
The adaptation itself stays remarkably close to Stoker's novel. A few characters have been combined or omitted, but the central story and themes remain intact. And rather than soften Dracula into the familiar charming antihero we've seen in countless adaptations, this version leans into the fact that he is, well, a monster. A very powerful one.
That gives the production an interesting problem to solve. Everyone in the audience already knows Dracula is going to show up. We know what he does. We know someone is going to get bitten. The surprise isn't if it happens, but when. This production plays with that expectation.
Characters appear. Disappear. Maybe they're safe. Maybe they're not. A character catching another person in a hand mirror can become its own little warning. The vixens—Dracula's followers—are scattered throughout the production, creating the sense that something is always lurking just outside the audience's attention.
And then there's the question of what happens to people when the rules stop working.
Moore, a Wilmington native who studied theater and African American studies at UNCG, has spent much of the last decade doing more screen and film work. She's also been fascinated by vampires since childhood, well before the Twilight era. For Amber, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood, Interview with the Vampire, and plenty of vampire books were part of her education.
For her, part of the appeal is the freedom vampires have from the usual constraints of society. They have strength. They have power. They have immortality. And, as Moore puts it, “a lot of audacity.”
The Victorian setting makes that particularly interesting. Mina and the other characters begin the story bound by the expectations of their time—how they're supposed to behave, what they're supposed to believe, who gets to make decisions.
Then an immortal vampire shows up and starts eating people. At some point, manners have to go out the window.
Moore sees a surprising amount of agency in Mina, too. Rather than simply being the Victorian woman who needs to be protected by the men around her, she's allowed to respond to the situation in her own way. Because when someone is trying to eat you, worrying about propriety is probably not the most pressing concern.
That tension between social expectations and extraordinary circumstances runs through the production. What happens when the world you understand suddenly doesn't make sense anymore? What parts of yourself survive when the rules you've been following no longer apply?
Also: vampires.
The production is putting just as much attention into the atmosphere. The original score that accompanies the script was replaced with an entirely new score by local musician Patrick Basquill. Rather than the traditional orchestral horror sound, Basquill has created roughly 45 tracks of original music. For a play, that's a fairly substantial musical undertaking.
It's also very much in keeping with what Zieseniss wants the production to be: familiar enough to recognize, but not something that feels like a museum piece.
The same goes for the design. Lighting, set, (lots of) blood effects, and all the other things that have to happen at precisely the right moment are doing some heavy lifting. The cast has also had an unusually long rehearsal process, with plenty of time devoted to character work and table discussion before getting into the business of actually terrorizing one another. And apparently, they're having fun.
For Moore, that may be one of the best parts of the whole thing. After spending much of the last decade doing more screen and film work, she says coming into rehearsal has given her a chance to simply play again.
“It's been very freeing,” she says. “You know, go to work all day, and then I can come here and just play.”
That's probably not a bad description of theater at its best.
Dracula is giving Thalian Association Community Theatre a chance to play with something Wilmington doesn't see all that often on a main stage: horror that is actually allowed to be horror.
Not a horror-themed comedy. Not a musical with a few spooky bits. Not a familiar classic carefully wrapped in bubble wrap. Just Dracula. Blood, monsters, Victorian propriety, religious iconography, an original electronic score—and yes, apparently a baby. Sometimes babies get eaten. Don't leave yours unattended around vampires.
Dracula runs September 25 through October 4, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., with Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. Tickets are on sale now at: thalianhall.org/tact-dracula-26
