Actors lay on stage, setting the first scene as the audience filed into the Fain Fine Arts Center for the theater department’s opening performance of Dracula Oct 4.

The horror novel by Bram Stoker was originally adapted into a play by Steven Deitz. The story undoubtedly paved the way for the modern vampire phenomena; stories, movies, and series as we know them today.

With the intention of keeping the integrity of the piece, Director Christie Maturo said, “This felt more like working with a movie script in that, we [had] little snippets of scenes and the challenge was to figure out how to tie them together so that [the audience] gets a whole story.”

In addition to casting a woman to play Dracula, Maturo took creative agency with the one act play, adding a sort of movement quality to it. Addrian Gaut Jr, theater senior who played Seward, explained how this was new to him as well.

“For me, this is like the first show that we’ve done that was really based off the movements,” Gaut said. “The way we go about developing characters is usually a bit different in other shows, but this one was about our bodies and how we moved within the space from the atmosphere into each scene.”

The audience also seemed to have caught on to the unique, avant garde nature of the performance.

“I have never read the book but I thought it was good and I liked the dancing, that was different. Also the fact that Dracula was a woman was cool. The ending was abrupt though, I thought it would be longer,” Tory Jimenez, criminal justice freshman, said.

According Maturo, the theater department decides what pieces to perform the fall before the season and one of its goals for this season was to do more recognizable titles in hopes of interest from the student body.

“I [also] wanted to leave a sense of atmosphere, I wanted to leave a sort of lingering mood. We as a cast worked a lot on what theme we would want the audience to take away,” Maturo said.

The play shows again Oct. 11, 12, and 13 at 7:30 p.m. in the Fain Fine Arts Theater.

The Wichitan misspelled Addrian Gaut Jr., theater senior’s name. The Wichitan regrets the error.