“There are darknesses in life and there are lights; you are one of the lights.”
Entering the Dream
We enter:
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The dream world of Bram Stoker.
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The dream that inspired Dracula.
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The interior landscapes of the characters.
Like the epistolary novel:
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We do not simply read their thoughts.
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We inhabit them.
Footing is uncertain.
Backdrops shift.
Dream logic reigns.
And yet, the narrative holds.
Characters long relegated to footnotes now breathe.
Refusing to be swallowed by the Count’s cape.
This is the world you are invited to enter.
Gary Hall
from
the Author
The Promise
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This work began as a pledge.
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A promise made between centuries.
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A vow to remain faithful to Dracula in tone and diegesis.
It is an adaptation only in the purest sense:
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A story moving from one medium to another.
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From page to stage.
From the moment the pledge was made, the work ceased to belong to me.
Born of Nightmare
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Stoker’s novel was born from a nightmare.
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This Requiem was born from my own nocturnal wanderings.
An evil had to be spawned, so dark, so absolute, that it demanded destruction.
Fangs aren’t the only way to bite.
In its truest sense, evil is:
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That thing stands between a person and their calling,
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Illness
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Fear
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Distorted perception
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Any force that obstructs becoming
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Thus, this Requiem is less about staking a monster
and more about exorcism in the most metaphorical sense.
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​
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Catharsis and Communion
From confrontation comes:
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Physical release
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Mental clarity
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Spiritual purging
The Greeks called this catharsis.
And a shared catharsis becomes communion.
And communion is the most powerful tool in theatre’s arsenal.
Not to Be Read. Not Merely Performed.
This Requiem is meant to be:
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Experienced.
It is a journey:
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From light to dark
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From terror to transcendence
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From fragmentation to wholeness
It should feel:
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Exhausting
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Exhilarating
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Unrepeatable
No two experiences should be the same.
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What You Bring With You
The journey depends on your provisions
Maybe it is:
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Puppetry
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Filmic projections
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Deeply layered soundscapes
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The psychological undercurrents move:
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From shadow to spotlight
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From subtext to confrontation
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Good and evil
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Light and dark
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Soul and oblivion
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Stoker’s novel is layered with intent and terror.
This staging should be as well.​
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The battle is elemental:
Remember in our own imaginations
do the darkest visions hide.
The stakes are amped up to eleven.
And in the end, it is not relics or totems that triumph.
It is love.
That is the novel’s true love story.
That is the celebration.
Do not become so enamored of the dark
that you miss the light.
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The canvas is dark
SPILL...SPLASH...BE MESSY!
That is the point of the phantasmagoria
EXPLORE
Safely, knowing:
It's only a play.
As Mina reminds us: "It''ll take more than a play to scare me."
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Bram Stoker opened the door to his world.
I walked through it.
Now I hold that door open for you.
Same story
New voice
The purpose enduring
ENTER FREELY
& BOLDLY
