Dracula
Season 09, Episode 09
September 20, 2021
Our third take on the man in black
Re-Imagined Radio reprises the 2018 recorded performance of "Dracula" by Metropolitan Performing Arts actors and other community volunteers at Kiggins Theatre in Vancouver, Washington. We edited the original recording, and present this new and improved iteration with the intent of sending a skitter up your spine!
Access the episode script
Production
Contents
Samples from the 2018 recording of the live performance of Dracula by Metropolitan Performing Arts. Adapted from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel.
Cast
John F. Barber as Dr. John Seward
Greg Shilling as Jonathan Harker
Calvin Lieurance as the Coach Driver and Mate of The Demeter
Brett Allred as Captain of The Demeter
Sebastian Hauskins as Deckhand
Mark Martin as Professor Abraham Van Helsing
Arianna Dorenbosch as Lucy Westenra
Kristin Heller as Wilhelmina "Mina" Harker
Ian Hanley as Dracula's Driver and Dracula
Credits
Curated, Produced, and Hosted by John F. Barber
Post Production by Marc Rose
Social Media by Regina Carol Social Media and Photography
Promotional Graphics by Holly Slocum Design
Significance
Dracula, the legendary novel by Bram Stoker, first published in 1897, is considered one of the greatest horror novels ever written. The novel examines the concepts of lust, sex, gender roles, and society's fears of the unnatural during late 19th and 20th century Victorian society. Today, we accept the reality of vampires. In Stoker's time, they were but myth. Nobody knew what they were, or how to deal with them. Over time, the focus of its many interpretations has come to be how evil abnormality can evolve from one source and infect the surrounding society with discord and misfortunes. Dracula, the vampire, infects others with his evil.
Producer's Notes
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Background
The blood. Oh, the blood!
Dracula, the legendary novel by Bram Stoker, first published in 1897, is considered one of the greatest horror novels ever written. The novel examines the concepts of lust, sex, gender roles, and society's fears of the unnatural during late 19th and 20th century Victorian society. Today, we accept the reality of vampires. In Stoker's time, they were but myth. Nobody knew what they were, or how to deal with them. Over time, the focus of its many interpretations has come to be how evil abnormality can evolve from one source and infect the surrounding society with discord and misfortunes. Dracula, the vampire, infects others with his evil.
Stoker, an Irish writer and theatre manager, drew inspiration for his novel from tales of Vlad the Impailer, or Dracula, born 1431 into a noble Transylvania family. His father was called "Dracul" because he belonged to the Order of the Dragon in Romania. "Dracula" means "son of Dracul." Therefore, Vlad was known as "son of the dragon" or "son of the devil" which may have been the beginning of the legend that he was a vampire.
As a warrior, Vlad was known to impale people on stakes and leave them to die. He was reported to have once dined among his victims, and to have eaten bread dipped in their blood. Killed in 1476, Dracula's head was cut off and displayed in Constantinople. In 1931, archaeologists exhumed his grave and took the skeleton to the History Museum in Bucharest, where it disappeared, leaving many mysteries about Prince Dracula unanswered and thus contributing to the legends surrounding Dracula.
On 11 July 1938, the The Mercury Theatre on the Air broadcast Dracula as a radio drama and contributed to keeping these legends alive. Directed by and starring Orson Welles, as both Count Dracula and Doctor Seward, the cast also included Martin Gabel, Agnes Moorehead, George Coulouris and Ray Collins.
The performance was notable, but quickly forgotten as the cast and crew of the Mercury Theatre began immediately working on upcoming performances. Following the broadcast of The War of the Worlds, 30 October 1938, perhaps the most famous radio broadcast of all time, Welles noted the earlier performance of Dracula to defend the production of realistic tales of horror.
Promotion
Graphics
