Dracula Play Guide - Actors Theatre of Louisville

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About the DRACULA Play Guide This play guide is a standards-based resource designed to enhance your theatre experience. Its goal is twofold: to nurture the teaching and learning of theatre arts and to encourage essential questions that lead to enduring understandings of the play’s meaning and relevance. Inside you will find history/contextual information, vocabulary and worksheets that lay the groundwork of the story and build anticipation for the performance. Oral discussion and writing prompts encourage your students to reflect upon their impressions and to analyze and relate key ideas to their personal experiences and the world around them. These can easily be adapted to fit most writing objectives. The Bridgework connects theatre elements with ideas for drama activities in the classroom as well as integrated curriculum. We encourage you to adapt and extend the material in any way to best fit the needs of your community of learners. Please feel free to make copies of this guide, or you may download it from our website: www. actorstheatre.org. We hope this material, combined with our pre-show workshops, will give you the tools to make your time at Actors Theatre a valuable learning experience. Dracula student matinees and play guides provide evidence that meet your program review characteristics and address specific educational objectives: • Students will identify or describe the use of elements of drama in dramatic works. • Students will analyze how time, place and ideas are reflected in drama/theatre • Students will explain how drama/theatre fufills a variety of purposes Table of contents 3 Synopsis, Cast of Characters 4 Vlad the Impaler: The Real Dracula 5 Bram Stoker: The Man Behind the Monster 6-7 Bloodlines: Vampire History 8 Vampire Survival Kit 9 Theatre-in-the-Round 10-11 Bridgework 12 Discussion Questions and Writing Portfolio Actors Theatre Education Steven Rahe, Director of Education Jacob Stoebel, Associate Director of Education Jane B. Jones, Education Associate Liz Fentress, Resident Teaching Artist Keith McGill, Resident Teaching Artist Gabriel Garcia, Education Intern/Teaching Artist LeShawn Holcomb, Education Intern/Teaching Artist Lori Pitts, Education Intern/Teaching Artist Christina Shackelford, Education Intern/Teaching Artist Play Guide compiled by Aurelia Clunie, Sarah Lunnie, Jeffrey Mosser, Rosie Chevalier, Steven Rahe, Jacob Stoebel, Jess Jung and Katie Blackerby Weible. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding our play guides, please contact Steven Rahe, Director of Education, at (502) 584-1265 ext. 3045 Fund for the Arts Members Agency
Cast of Characters DR. SEWARD Head Doctor at the asylum. In mourning over the death of his fiancee Mina. COUNT DRACULA Seward’s new neighbor; recently moved from Transylvania. PROFESSOR ABRAM VAN HELSING Old friend of Seward; comes to help Lucy. MINA: LOVE OF SEWARD Recently died of a mysterious illness involving a loss of blood. LUCY: MINA’S FRIEND Displaying the same troubling symptoms as her friend Mina. JONATHAN HARKER Lucy’s fiancé; missing after a trip to Transylvania. Synopsis Trouble is brewing when the curtain rises on William McNulty’s new adaptation of Dracula. Dr. Abram Van Helsing has arrived at the estate of his old friend, Dr. Seward, who is desperate for help. Seward’s beloved Mina has recently died of a sudden and mysterious illness. Her horrific symptoms have proved baffling to the bereaved doctor: sudden loss of blood, bouts of sleepwalking in the cemetery, and strange puncture wounds on the neck. To make matters worse, Mina’s friend, Lucy, has begun to display the same symptoms! Seward hopes that Van Helsing, a noted expert in exotic medicine, will be able to uncover the cause of Lucy’s illness, and save her before it’s too late. Meanwhile, Count Dracula, a strange and imposing man from Transylvania, has taken up residence in nearby Carfax Abbey. And Lucy’s fiancé, Jonathan Harker, has mysteriously vanished. A solicitor who helped arrange the sale of the Abbey, Harker traveled to Transylvania a few months ago to finalize business matters with the Count… and never returned home. At Seward’s estate, Renfield, a mental patient, is becoming more wild and unruly by the day, almost as though he were possessed. Lucy’s symptoms continue to grow worse. And how to account for the sudden onslaught of howls, coming by night from up the hill? RENFIELD Psychiatric patient who seems to know a bit too much about what is going on. miss sullivan Dr. Seward’s assistant. MR. Briggs Dr. Seward’s orderly. Responsible for maintaining peace among the patients. Setting The Victorian Era. Dr. Seward’s sanatorium and environs in Purley, England. Later in Transylvania. Van Helsing believes the problem they face is a grave one: “My diagnosis is there is no disease! The symptoms are real. But the cause is not internal.” He believes that Mina, and now Lucy, have suffered at the hands of a vampire. To save Lucy’s life, they will have to uncover the identity of the life-sucking demon, and destroy him. But the endeavor is a dangerous one. A vampire is a fearsome enemy, and the risks are greater than death. Should the doctors perish in their pursuit, they too will become vampires, spending an eternity preying upon the bodies and souls of those whom once they dearly loved. Will Seward and Van Helsing find the vampire and save Lucy’s life? Or is the monster about to claim yet another victim? 3
Page 1: PLAY GUIDE
Page 5 and 6: BRAM Stoker the man behind the mons
Page 7 and 8: 1922 F.W. Murnau’s horror classic
Page 9 and 10: theatre-in-the-round T Bingham Thea
Page 11 and 12: cross-cirricular connections Englis

Dracula Play Guide - Actors Theatre of Louisville

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