The Transylvanian Clockworks
AUDITIONS
8/26 and 8/27 at 6pm
8/29 and 10am
Location: Church Hill Theatre office (Across the street from the theatre)
ABOUT THE SHOW:
The Transylvanian Clockworks is “…a powerful, complex, darkly funny, and utterly terrifying vampire play. Set in London and Transylvania in 1888, the year of Jack the Ripper, it captures the erotic power and poetry of Stoker’s novel while looking more deeply into the characters’ souls to examine the sensual and frightening undercurrents of this captivating Victorian tale.
Jonathan Harker has returned from Transylvania so profoundly disturbed that he is confined to Dr. Seward’s mental hospital, and Van Helsing has been called in to help unravel the mystery of Jonathan’s dementia. Jonathan’s version of events at Castle Dracula leads them into a horrifying nightmare involving the mysterious foreign gentleman who seems to be seducing the women in Jonathan’s life. A complex labyrinth of fear, desire, violence, and lurking evil spirals into a horrific and surprising conclusion.”
This is NOT another melodramatic telling of Bram Stoker’s classic tale, but rather an exploration of the social and psychic imbalances inherent in Victorian society; of how repressed sensuality can lead, with righteous intensions, to cruelty, insanity, and violence.
AUDITION INFORMATION
CHARACTER BREAKDOWN
Character Breakdowns
Jonathan Harker: (25-40)
…a capable and charming English businessman, deeply in love with his wife Mina, who has been mentally torn apart by something that happened in Transylvania. His logic and reason are transformed into a poetic turbulence of emotion and psychic disturbance.
Dr. John Seward: (30-50)
…a brilliant but insecure psychiatric doctor and head of a local mental hospital who is caring for his friend Harker. He is deeply in love with Lucy but driven to desperation by her erotic teasing and refusal to marry him. He is a one-time student and protege of Van Helsing.
Dr. Van Helsing: (40-60)
…a psychiatric doctor and professor summoned from Amsterdam by Seward to help treat Harker. As a righteous champion of everything proper, good, and holy, he is precise, instructive, and willing – to the point of abuse – to go to any lengths to destroy evil as he sees it.
Lucy Westerna: (20-30)
…a rich, spoiled, narcissistic, sensual, and delightfully captivating young heiress. She envies Mina her strength as she struggles to navigate the contradictory expectations imposed upon women of her time – both society’s and Dr. Seward’s.
Mina Harker: (20-30)
…an orphaned cousin who grew up in Lucy’s home to become an intelligent and independent “New Woman” pushing back against the dominant males in her life. Whatever has happened to her husband disturbs her as well, as she watches her circle of loved ones be torn apart by the mysterious stranger.
Peg: (20-30)
…a maid and friend to Lucy and Mina who is bounced around and victimized by her higher-class friends.
Dracula: (40-60)
…a modestly dressed, enigmatic gentleman from Old Europe. His nature, behavior, and motivations seem to differ for each of the other characters. To those caught up in the strictures of Victorian society, he represents the primitive, subconscious, and liberating, forces within.
The following sides will be used at auditions.