“Dracula: a feminist revenge fantasy" at Augustana College -- October 12 through 15.
Thursday, October 12, through Sunday, October 15
Augustana College's Brunner Theatre Center, 3750 Seventh Avenue, Rock Island IL
Lauded by DC Theater Arts as "a thrilling experience in theatergoing" and by the Wall Street Journal as a "fresh, theatrically potent spin on the novel," playwright Kate Hamill's witty, creepy, and macabre Dracula, a feminist revenge fantasy opens Augustana College's 2023-24 season in Rock Island, the production certain to demonstrate why New York Theatre Guide proclaimed the genre-bending stage work "biting in every sense of the word."
Delivering what the Maryland Theatre Guide calls "a witty, relentless, and bloody satisfying attack on the patriarchy," Hamill's imaginative, gender-bending revenge fantasy is like no Dracula you've ever seen -- a work that explores the nature of predators and reinvents Bram Stoker's legendary horror novel as a smart, disquieting, darkly comic drama. With Hamill also the author of reimagined stage versions of literary masterpieces including Pride & Prejudice, Vanity Fair, and Sense & Sensibility (which Moline's Playcrafters Barn Theatre staged this past spring), her signature style and postmodern wit upend this familiar tale of Victorian morality.
The Maryland Theatre Guide added, "Kate Hamill turns the tables on the classic tale’s unquestioned male dominance and female victimhood with an uncompromising commitment to exposing the absurdity of gender stereotyping." And Vulture magazine proclaimed, "“Hamill’s spirited Dracula has gone full Buffy the Vampire Slayer, womanhandling the plot so that it becomes a fierce parable about warrior-femme liberation. Stoker’s original stoked 120 years of fantasies about anemic virgins and smoky-eyed guys who exerted hypnotic sexual control ... . But Hamill pumps blood right back into those women, changing some characters’ genders and beefing up women’s roles. And the result is: Men get checked. Vampires get stomped."
Directing Dracula: a feminist revenge fantasy in its area debut is Augustana's Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts Jennifer Popple, whose previous productions for the college have included The Memo, Macbeth, One Flea Spare, Noises Off, and The Crucible. Allison McPeak serves as Popple's assistant director (and the director of the play's Lucy-Mina scenes), while this past spring's Augustana graduate Jacqueline Isaacson, seen last season in Cabaret, acts as the show's intimacy director. Grey White is the production's stage manager, with additional members of Dracula's creative team including assistant stage managers Alyssa Ogrodny and Sarah Villani: technical director and scenic/lighting/sound designer Mike Turczynski; costume designer Becki Arnold: assistant costume designer Katie Sanders; assistant sound designer Natalie Hansen; props designer Paige Withey: fight choreographer Jeff Coussens; hair and makeup designer Bailey Hacker; and "blood master" Sarah Thule.
Returning to the Brunner Theatre stage after his 2021 graduation, James Wheeler portrays Dracula's titular count, with the actor previous seen in productions including The Three Musketeers, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and In the Next Room (or the vibrator play). And with Emma Watts enacting Hamill's gender-swapped take on Van Helsing, Popple's cast is completed by Catherine Karn, Noah Johnson, Gianna Zampogna, Jack Pawlak, Anya Giordano, Maddie Miller, and, as Renfield, Jean Tegtmeyer.
Dracula: a feminist revenge fantasy will be staged in Augustana College's Brunner Theatre Center from October 12 through 15, with performances Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 1:30 p.m. Admission is $10-15, and more information and tickets are available by calling (309)794-7306 and visiting Augustana.edu/tickets.
