Madison meets the most famous vampire of all time: Dracula Spoilers ahead…
Over the last year I’ve been wading slowly into the deep end of audio drama. Early on, I quickly discovered that the main genres that dominate the platform are sci-fi, fantasy
and horror. Our little comedy concept is outside of those tropes and, as I’ve discovered, harder to win an audience who overall prefers to stick with those three main genres. But that’s okay, we are who we are. However, as the production schedule moved further into 2021 and the October show had to be chosen, it certainly was a no-brainer to find a Halloween themed show for Madison. I’ve shared this link before but it’s worth sharing again. Generic Radio, which is an online resource for a wide variety of OTR scripts, has been a resource to me from the beginning. And in my browsing the titles they have, I found, tucked under “Miscellaneous Single Episodes” this script of Dracula.
There are probably as many versions of Dracula in the world as there are Cinderella. So, aside from Madison being in our telling, how do I make it unique? While still using the Stage 49’s episode as a guide because adaptations is what we do here! Obviously for those familiar with the Bram Stoker novel, the story is fully set in the 1800’s and brings Dracula from Transylvania to London. That didn’t feel like it connected to our concept of Madison being “zapped” into the OTR era, so I came up with the idea of her bringing Dracula to Hollywood in 1949 (when the radio show of Dracula aired). So much fun! The Chateau Marmont is absolutely a fixture here in L.A., a door into the past of the Golden Age of Hollywood, and yeah, it kinda looks like a castle towering over the hopes and dreams of Sunset Blvd. Perfect stand-in for the London castle where Dracula based his operations. Chateau Marmont is where John Belushi died, and here’s an Easter egg for you… my Dracula meets his own doom in the same Bungalow where Belushi spent his last hours on earth. Bungalow 3 (pictured below) is believed to be haunted. Looks awesome, regardless! And then the Hollywood Forever Cemetery!
Another staple for Angelenos and a must-visit if you’re in town. Gorgeous grounds with epic tombs, tranquil landscaping, a flock of peacocks and peahens… and an absolute hot-spot for summer movie nights!
Overall, we didn’t have time to fit in a lot of the original Dracula story. Stage 49 did a lot of leading up to get to Dracula’s castle which, when I was looking at the adaption, saw we were 15 pages in and hadn’t met Dracula yet! Snore! There was a lot of Johnathan’s traveling and interacting with gypsies (which are a trigger topic now so I didn’t want to be mired in THAT discussion) so I condensed a lot there. But I did like that once the story moved to London, Stage 49 leapt right into Lucy already being undead and put the focus on Van Helsing’s work. They cut out all of her suitors and made Dr. John Seward encompass them all AND be the doctor for Renfield. Jonathan Harker and Mia are in the Stage 49 version, but Madison jumped in to play both of those roles. (In their version Mia didn’t even know Lucy, she’s kinda tacked on at the end) And, of course, I added the hotel manager of the Chateau Marmont because that was just a lot of fun!
Well, we all hope you enjoyed our stepping into a bit of the horror audio drama genre, and that we’re a fun addition to everyone’s Halloween celebrations. Not to stop here… November we will jump into the sci-fi genre with an adaptation of my favorite episode of the 1950 sci-fi anthology OTR, “Dimension X.” Happy Halloween!
