The undead will make their debut next month in downtown St. Catharines.<\/p>\n
Moira Buffini’s\u00a0<\/em>A Vampire Story<\/em>, the mainstage production from Brock University\u2019s Department of Dramatic Arts, opens at the Marilyn I. Walker Theatre Friday, March 3.<\/p>\n The show follows Ella, a vampire who is new to a small town that has been plagued by disappearing high school students and teachers.<\/p>\n Seeking to become more human, she decides to stop drinking blood and to be honest about her undead state, her vampire mother and her horrific past.<\/p>\n But Ella\u2019s honesty isn\u2019t well received by the community. Her life is upended as she is ostracized and hunted \u2014 all while falling in love and sorting out her priorities in a small town where the residents are as bizarre and insatiable as the vampires who live among them.<\/p>\n Led by Director and Adjunct Professor Gyllian Raby, the adaptation of A Vampire\u2019s Story <\/em>finds a perfect balance between the play\u2019s gothic and comedic nature.<\/p>\n Raby\u2019s success both as a professional director and Associate Professor comes from her extensive experience and her affinity for intelligent, culturally astute comedy. She has worked as a freelance director, dramaturge and playwright\/adaptor across the world.<\/p>\n Her productions of Bernard Shaw\u2019s Passion, Poison and Petrifaction<\/em>, the jazz\/tap musical Fingers and Toes, <\/em>Nicolai Erdman’s Russian farce The Suicide! <\/em>and the international clown show hit Don’t Do It – Do It<\/em> have been widely enjoyed by audiences in Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Thailand.<\/p>\n Raby said A Vampire Story<\/em> is more relevant now than its debut performance in 2016, especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The loneliness and anxiety caused by the pandemic are common motivating factors for vampire and infection stories, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can all identify with characters who are intensely alone amid society. Of course, this explains the success of the vampire genre,\u201d Raby said. \u201cMoira Buffini\u2019s smart, witty play taps into the pop culture genre, relating loss of soul to the need for activist awareness.\u201d<\/p>\n Assistant Director and fourth-year DART student Lucas Irving said the use of monsters within the show is instrumental.<\/p>\n \u201cThe production offers a fantastic opportunity to explore who and what the monsters in society are and how the definition changes from one period to another,\u201d he said. \u201cVampires often surface during times of change and we\u2019re certainly in a time of great change.\u201d<\/p>\n A Vampire Story<\/em> includes\u00a0set design by Nigel Scott, costume design by Alexa Fraser and lighting design by Chris Malkowski, with music direction and live band leadership by Joe Lapinski.\u00a0The production\u00a0showcases the talents of Brock DART students\u00a0Hayley King,\u00a0Simone Cinapri, Maiya Irwin, Thea Van Loon, Alex De Cicco, Cal Webb Wilkinson, Hunter Brown, Nathan Faigundo, Emma van Barneveld, Tyra Hayward, Celine Zamidar, Michelle Shortt, Benoit\u00a0St. Aubain, Kaitlyn Boyer, Isaiah Alton and Zakk Milne.<\/p>\n A Vampire Story<\/em> opens Friday, March 3 at 7:30 p.m. in the Marilyn I. Walker Theatre inside the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts. Tickets are available for $20 for general admission and $16 for students and seniors. Performances will also take place Saturday, March 4 at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, March 5 at 2 p.m., Friday, March 10 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, March 11 at 7:30 p.m. To reserve tickets please visit the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The undead will make their debut next month in downtown St. Catharines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":83851,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9794,7484,3319,37,1,4],"tags":[12445,12448,656,109,2909,6518,12446,10145,5903,2518,12447,8469],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83850"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83850"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83862,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83850\/revisions\/83862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}