Category Archives: Dracula . A Love Story

Co-director Christopher Henley’s fascination for the Prince of Darkness

This article originally appeared on DCTheatreScene.com

Between Bela Lugosi and Bella from the Twilight series, there was Hammer Studios. From the late 1950s through the mid 1970s, that venerable British institution reimagined and reinvigorated the horror genre. It produced original material, movies with names like The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, but it also returned to some of the classic narratives of the genre, and it was those versions that first introduced me to, for instance, The Phantom of the Opera. (The Hammer version starring Herbert Lom was the first version I ever saw. Whether that is the reason I prefer it to all versions I’ve seen subsequently, from stage musical to the earlier, more revered classic film versions with the Phantom played by Claude Rains and Lon Chaney, I can only speculate.) Continue reading Co-director Christopher Henley’s fascination for the Prince of Darkness

Dracula . A Love Story

Among the bogeymen on the fringes of human consciousness, Dracula stands alone. Frankenstein, Godzilla, and werewolves inhabit our nightmares; Dracula is the gleaming demon of our dreams.

The other monsters look out at us with animal rapaciousness and subhuman intellect. Dracula fixes us with a cool gaze. He is older than us, more powerful, profoundly more intelligent.

He loves with the force of gravity.
He loves with his whole being, and demands unconditional love in return.
He promises eternal life, and calls upon us to drink his blood.
This is not how men love. This is how God loves. This is rapture.

Dracula . A Love Story
a modern retelling of the Dracula story

by Tim Treanor
Directed by Christopher Henley

Meet the cast

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see it live this summer at the 2014 Capital Fringe Festival in Washington, DC