EXCLUSIVE: Depraved’s Cynthia Erivo will play Bram Stoker’s demonic vampire and 22 different roles in Dracula, a one-woman theatrical extravaganza set for subsequent 12 months in London’s West Finish, from the creatives and producers behind Sarah Snook’s Broadway and London triumph The Image of Dorian Grey.
Stoker’s gothic shocker explores the darkish corners of Victorian-age sexuality, worry and need. The story, first revealed in 1897, is each alluring and horrifying, filled with terrifying and dreamlike imagery.
Dracula, tailored and directed by Kip Williams, marks Oscar-nominated Erivo’s return to the stage for the primary time since her Tony Award-winning position as Celie in The Colour Purple, which she starred in for 2 years in New York earlier than exiting in January 2017. The Royal Academy of Dramatic Artwork-trained artist performed Celie in London, and honed her craft in a number of performs and musicals within the UK earlier than relocating to the U.S.
The Sydney Theatre Firm manufacturing of Dracula will play the Cameron Waterproof coat-owned Noel Coward Theatre for a restricted 16-week engagement February 4-Might 31, 2026.
Courtesy Michael Cassel/Adam Kenwright
Michael Cassel, producer and CEO of Australia’s Michael Cassel Group, and Adam Kenwright, a prime London and Broadway producer and ace worldwide advertising guru, reunite to supply the STC manufacturing as they did with Dorian Grey, which they took to London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket and the Music Field, the place it runs till June 29.
Confirming the Dracula information solely to Deadline, Cassel says “the celebrities have aligned and we’ve obtained a tremendous actor in Cynthia to affix us.”
The preliminary method to Erivo was made 9 months in the past in the midst of the hectic international promotional tour for Depraved.
Buoyed by Erivo’s curiosity, Cassel and Kenwright moved with acceptable supernatural velocity to hook up the London-born star with Williams. He confirmed her archival video of the STC manufacturing of Dracula that performed Sydney’s Roslyn Packer Theatre for 4 weeks final 12 months with Aussie actress Zehra Newman enjoying the nocturnal fiend.
Williams spoke with Erivo about what he phrases “cine-theatre,” the place actors work together with stay and pre-recorded video feeds.
Later, Erivo noticed Snook’s efficiency, now Tony-nominated, on the Music Field and visited together with her afterwards. Clearly, that present’s vastly totally different from Dracula, however it enabled Erivo to check how Williams levels his interactive work with digicam operators transferring with balletic grace throughout the stage as an artist performs a number of roles.
Sarah Snook in ‘The Image of Dorian Grey’
Marc Brenner
“She has actually spent most of her time with Kip simply speaking via the inspiration and the dramaturgy of all of it. For them to attach in that means has been necessary for them as a result of this can be a present that they go and create collectively,” Cassel explains throughout a name from Melbourne, the place he’s been overseeing a manufacturing of the musical Beetlejuice on the metropolis’s Regent Theatre.
Cassel factors out that the West Finish’s Dracula won’t “be a blueprint” of the Sydney model. “I feel what’s so thrilling, I feel for her, and for us, whereas we all know what the story is, they get to go and create this position within the rehearsal room in London collectively, and that was very interesting to Cynthia to place her personal interpretation on the position and discover that with Kip.”
The record of 23 characters that Erivo will carry out embrace the fanged Rely Dracula, who sustains life by sucking the blood of the dwelling; Jonathan Harker, a newly certified solicitor who travels to to fulfill his new shopper who resides in a citadel nestled within the distant Transylvanian mountains; Mina Murray, Harker’s fiancée; her pal Lucy Westenra; and Professor Van Hesling, vampire hunter and knowledgeable in occult lore.
To drag off all these and different roles “you want nice actors,” says Cassel, “and we simply couldn’t be happier with Cynthia main the cost.”
Depraved followers will little question be elated to be taught that Erivo will sing in Dracula, however only one track.
The unique piece within the present consists by Clemence Williams, who, because it occurs, has been nominated for a Tony Award for sound design for The Image of Dorian Grey.
RELATED: Broadway Overview: Sarah Snook Goes Fantastically Wilde In ‘The Image Of Dorian Grey’
Cassel was fast to state that Dracula‘s “a play not a musical, however there’s an authentic track in it” that shall be carried out in the direction of the top of the 1 hour, 50 minute present.
Depraved: For Good, half two of director Jon M. Chu’s display adaptation of the Broadway hit musical, opens November 21, whereas rehearsals for Dracula begin late December.
Nevertheless, with Dracula performances starting February 4, Cassel and Kenwright are cognizant of the truth that Erivo might must skip off to 1 or two awards exhibits and are making provision within the present’s efficiency schedule ought to that ultimately come up.
“We’re taking that under consideration,” Cassel provides, “placing all these items in place in order that Cynthia might be part of all the pieces else that’s happening in her life — we’ll construct that in.”
“Once more why we’re simply so thrilled Cynthia has agreed to decide on this as a undertaking she actually desires to be part of. While you take a look at Sarah as nicely, these actors have these wonderful experiences on movie or tv, however the draw to the theatre, and certainly to do one thing that’s so difficult, I feel it’s testomony to the caliber as actors that these people are. It’s difficult what they’re being requested to do. It’s a world aside from what Cynthia’s been doing lately, and she will be able to go and discover that character and be challenged night time in, night time out as all good actors are in entrance of a stay viewers and I feel that’s actually thrilling.”
(L-R) Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in ‘Depraved: Half One’
Common Footage
Erivo has a number of different initiatives forward of Dracula. They embrace internet hosting the 78th Tony Awards at Radio Metropolis Music Corridor on June 8. Following that, she is going to star alongside Teo Yoo (Previous Lives) and Isabel Might (1883) in director Takashi Doscher’s motion thriller Karoshi for 87Eleven and Lionsgate.
There are different films in Erivo’s diary, plus taking up the position of Jesus in a live performance model of the Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Jesus Christ Celebrity on the Hollywood Bowl in early August.
When Stoker revealed his epistolary novel, critics noticed it as a mirrored image of features of Victoria-era society. Cassel nods whereas observing that Williams in his adaptation delves “way more a lot into the metaphorical energy of Dracula and reorienting the psychological battle between worry, need and denial, and I feel that’s way more resonant now, that’s my view.
“It’s obtained an excellent up to date lens on it.”
Cassel and Kenwright refuse to speak about additional life for Dracula with Erivo after the Noel Coward Theatre. Broadway has not been talked about, but.
“All of our focus is on the West Finish and to make {that a} success and welcome Cynthia into the world of Dracula,” says Cassel.
