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Regent University Theatre Presents: Dracula

A haunting battle of good versus evil looms in the Gothic story of a powerful “King of Vampires” and a team of comrades who seek to hunt him down as Regent University Theatre presents William McNulty’s Dracula.

Performances open on the Dede Robertson Theatre stage in the Communication & Performing Arts Center Friday, Oct. 7-9 and continue the following weekend, Oct. 14-16. Friday and Saturday performances begin at 7:30 p.m., with Sunday performances beginning at 2:30 p.m.

Purchase tickets at the Regent Box Office.

Director and School of Communication & the Arts professor, Dr. Michael Hill-Kirkland, was attracted to McNulty’s rendition of the classic story as a nod to the early Hammer films that depict Dracula as an unadulterated villain.

But in the last few decades, films such as Dracula Untold, and even the Twilight series have romanticized these dark, twisted stories and softened the dark and imminent blows of a true villain.

“Admittedly, any genre must periodically reinvent itself – receive a transfusion, if you will,” said Hill-Kirkland. “But in this case, the resulting evolution has been decidedly away from the moral clarity of those earlier interpretations toward a more complex, sympathetic version; one supposed so as to maximize Dracula’s empathy factor, sex appeal, and of course, profit margin.”

McNulty’s stage adaptation draws a line in the sand between right and wrong, good and evil. There is no question: Count Dracula is a villain, and the classic story unfurls on Regent’s stage.

“McNulty has provided us with a barn-burner of a melodrama, containing all of the perquisite thrills, chills and cliff-hangers,” said Hill-Kirkland. “It’s been a distinct pleasure realizing on stage what I have personally come to view as a heart-felt homage to an earlier iteration of the Dracula saga.”

Learn more about Regent University’s School of Communication & the Arts and the 2016-2017 Regent Theatre season.