Last night I saw the immersive theatre piece
Dreams of Dracula. If you're looking for a fun immersive piece to see, you could do worse. Though not as good as the immersive
The Great Gatsby, it has the advantage of still being open, and though the production doesn't have the same resources as
Sleep No More, the
tickets are more affordable.
Created by Nicole Coady and Jonathan Albert, the piece brings Bram Stoker's novel
Dracula to life at the club Musica on 50th Street near the West Side Highway. The upper level focuses on dance pieces, while the lower level is the place you want to be if you prefer dialogue and interacting with the characters. That's also where I ran into Oscar Wilde (played by Kelsey Rondeau), a former classmate of Stoker's from
Trinity College in Dublin.
My favorite character was Renfeld, portrayed by Paul Pecorino. He ran about in a straightjacket delivering in his madness lines from Percy Shelley's "
Ode to the West Wind" among other things. Alas, I never ran into Shelley himself, though Mary Shelley is supposed to appear on some nights, along with Lord Byron and Sigmund Freud for some reason.
Like with Sleep No More, audience members are all supposed to be masked. Those with glasses sometimes had a difficult time with this, but you can put your mask over your forehead, and no one will mind. The dress code is all black, which is good, as any speck of white will shine brightly in the venue's lights. Some of the audience members last night were even better costumed than the actors!
