Audiences will have to imagine what castle looks like in audio adaptation of Dracula
Who: Norm Lewis, Lindsay Nicole Chambers, Siho Ellsmore, Chris Renfro, Dick Terhune, Stuart Williams, John Stimac
What: Virtual, immersive audio presentation of Dracula
Where: Resounding Live
When: Friday, October 20, and Saturday, October 31, $20, 8:00
Why: Because of the pandemic lockdown, theater creators have been looking at innovative ways to bring storytelling into people’s homes. One method that is making a comeback is the radio play. On October 30, Keen Company is performing Orson Welles’s iconic 1938 War of the Worlds radio script. Welles’s legacy also plays a part in Resounding’s audio production of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, inspired by Welles’s 1938 radio adaptation and utilizing cutting-edge proprietary technology that promises “to create a live 360-degree soundscape of howls, bats, screams, creaky floors, slamming doors, and everything that goes bump in the night.” Tony nominee Norm Lewis dons the cape as the bloodsucking count, with Lindsay Nicole Chambers as Mina Murray, Siho Ellsmore as Lucy Westenra, Chris Renfro as Jonathan Harker, Dick Terhune as Prof. Van Helsing, Stuart Williams as Dr. Seward, and John Stimac as Renfield, all performing live from wherever they’re sheltering in place.
“I’ve been thinking for the better part of a decade about how to leverage the internet to increase audience and participation in the theater in America and the world,” Resounding creative director Steve Wargo said in a statement. “My initial ideas were to re-create the style and substance of the broadcasts that Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre performed live on the radio in the late ’30s. Time passed, other projects came and went, then the pandemic hit, and this idea became front and center. We have an amazing team and now we have some fancy patent-pending new technology on our hands, something potentially revolutionary. And what better way to launch that with the great Norm Lewis as Dracula for Halloween.” In addition, New York City bartender Jena Ellenwood has curated cocktails to accompany the fifty-five-minute show; the audience is also encouraged to dress up for the event and post images to a virtual photo booth on Pinterest to form a unique community. Next up for Resounding are an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island November 27-28 and the world premiere of The Fantastical Tale of the Nutcracker and the Mouse King December 18-19.