Colony High to stage ‘Dracula’ in time for Halloween

PALMER — Tonight, Count Dracula will take up temporary residence at Colony High School.

“We really focused on making this dark, making it kind of an intense Dracula who has a real problem. He needs new blood, he needs love,” said Colony High drama teacher Brian Mead. “What we’re, I think, concentrating on is to make this guy, I don’t want to say real, but he has a real problem.”

He said it’s kind of a tough thing to tell a vampire story in a fresh way, especially to today’s youth.

“They know ‘Twilight’ and they know ‘True Blood’ and there are a plethora of other books out there for teen audiences,” Mead said.

The Colony production, he said, deliberately avoids camp and unintentional comedy. Colony’s Dracula is not the slick-haired figure you know from lunchboxes and cartoons.

For those unaware of the story, the play is an adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel. The story revolves around two women — Lucy and Mina — their suitors and their encounters with a reclusive count both in Transylvania and America who turns out to be the ancient vampire Dracula.

Along the way there’s blood and there’s bones. It’s also not the sort of thing one expects a high school drama program to choose. It’s not “South Pacific” and it’s not “Brigadoon.” This is a fact of which Mead is well aware.

“There are a couple of scenes that are a bit risqué. I did have a meeting with all of the parents saying, ‘look, you understand that the character Dracula is going to bare his chest, cut his chest and then the character Mina is going to have to drink the blood from him,’” he said.

Having taken care of those concerns beforehand, Mead said he thinks he’s put together a play that will draw a crowd.

“When I pick my seasons for shows, I do like to give a wide range of genres and styles of theater and I also wanted a cash cow,” he said. “The whole vampire genre is really hot and to be able to throw a show at Halloween, that’s perfect.”

He said he thinks Dracula should appeal to the wider community, though maybe not children. Mead said he’s debating whether to let his 7-year-old see it. It’s scary at times. Perhaps an aisle seat would be best for the younger audience members.

In addition to the actors on stage, Mead said for the first time he’s got a talented group of students doing the backstage work.

“I’ve got a student costume designer, which I have never had before,” he said. There’s also a freshman sound designer and a “girl who is doing lights for the second year and wants to do this professionally.”

Dracula will also feature original music from a Colony student. It’s to the point now, he said, where he almost wonders if the students are trying to top one another with what they can contribute.

His goal, he said, is to get the drama department as close to a working theater as possible.

“I have 15 years of professional experience in drama before I came here, rather than the typical English teacher who got stuck with drama,” Mead said.

But he doesn’t run the program like he would a theater.

“It’s a learning process, too,” he said. “I tell the kids, ‘hey, you don’t have to know how to do it, we’re going to teach it.’”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.