In New York, Gorey soon became a passionate admirer of the New York City Ballet and George Balanchine, whom he described as “the greatest influence on me…Everything he ever said about art, in the larger sense, was only too true.” Gorey attended every performance of all of Balanchine’s ballets until the choreographer’s death in 1983. That year, Gorey, who had divided his time between midtown Manhattan and Cape Cod, summering with family, moved permanently to the Cape, “an act of aestheticism worthy of Oscar Wilde,” according to Stephen Schiff in a New Yorker profile. During the original Broadway run, members of the Dracula cast presented an adaptation of the play on 30 March 1928, on the short-lived NBC Radio series Stardom of Broadway. Lugosi, Van Sloan, Peterson, Neill, and Jukes performed on the 30-minute program. [44] Films [ edit ] Bela Lugosi in the 1931 film adaptation Grams, Martin Jr. (October 2013). "The Quest for the Unholy Grail" (PDF). Radiogram. Society To Preserve and Encourage Radio Drama, Variety and Comedy. pp.8–13. Waller, Gregory (2010) [1986]. The Living and the Undead: Slaying Vampires, Exterminating Zombies. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-07772-2. OCLC 952246731. Miller, Patrice. “Bat Ambassador: Edward Gorey.” The Edward Gorey House. Edward Gorey House, n.d.Web. 17 Oct. 2016.

Scivally, Bruce (2015). Dracula FAQ: All That's Left to Know About the Count from Transylvania. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN 978-1-61713-636-8. OCLC 946707995. Dracula is a stage play written by the Irish actor and playwright Hamilton Deane in 1924, then revised by the American writer John L. Balderston in 1927. It was the first authorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula. After touring in England, the original version of the play appeared at London's Little Theatre in July 1927, where it was seen by the American producer Horace Liveright. Liveright asked Balderston to revise the play for a Broadway production that opened at the Fulton Theatre in October 1927. This production starred Bela Lugosi in his first major English-speaking role. Gorey attended Harvard University from 1946 to 1950, majoring in French literature, studying with John Ciardi, and rooming with the poet Frank O’Hara. Gorey’s earliest illustrations date from this period, when he also designed sets, directed, and wrote for the Poets Theater, along with O’Hara, John Ashbery, Alison Lurie, and Violet Lang, among others. His eccentrically dressed persona – long overcoats, tennis shoes, clanking jewelry, and eventually a luxuriant beard – was established at Harvard. In 1952, Gorey moved to New York to work in Doubleday’s new Anchor Books division, eventually designing more than fifty distinctive covers and achieving recognition for his illustrations. He worked for various publishing houses until turning freelance in the mid-1960s. He also began writing and illustrating his own books, publishing in 1953 the first of what would be more than a hundred small, enigmatic volumes: The Unstrung Harp, the illustrated story of the travails of a novelist. While Gorey claimed that he knew nothing about being a writer at the time, Graham Greene called The Unstrung Harp “the best novel ever written about a novelist and I ought to know.” Partly because of the introductions to the Public Television series Mystery!, created with the animator Derek Lamb and his team in 1980 and still in use, Gorey is best known to the wider public for his drawings. In his books, which chronicle a vaguely Edwardian world of patriarchs in ankle-length overcoats, mustachioed men in padded dressing gowns, wantons with nodding plumes, uniformed housemaids, and children in sailor suits and pinafores, images carry the ambiguous narratives as much as the text. His often relentlessly cross-hatched, inventively patterned pen and ink drawings can be obsessively detailed, full of small events that we must work hard to discover, or, as in the 1963 masterpiece The West Wing, which is devoid of text,miracles of suggestive economy. Yet Gorey always depicted himself as a writer, not as an artist. He described his books as “Victorian novels all scrunched up.” Manhattan, early 1970s. Photograph by Bill Cunningham. From The Unstrung Harp (1953) He switched the names of female characters, now Mina character was called Lucy Seward, who is the daughter of Dr. Seward and fiancee of Jonathan Harker (named now John Harker). [38] a b DVD Documentary The Road to Dracula (1999) and audio commentary by David J. Skal, Dracula: The Legacy Collection (2004), Universal Home Entertainment catalog # 24455There was even a play adaptation about the captivating vampire. In 1924, Hamilton Deane adapted Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula into a stage play with the permission of Stoker’s widow. The play toured in England and was brought to Broadway in 1927. Directed by Ira Hards with scenic design by Joseph A. Physioc, Dracula opened on 5 October 1927 at the Fulton Theatre in New York City. It closed on 19 May 1928 after 261 performances. The Broadway production starred Bela Lugosi in his first major English-speaking role; Edward Van Sloan as Van Helsing; and Dorothy Peterson as Lucy Seward. [12] Raymond Huntley, who had performed the role of Dracula for four years in England, was engaged by Liveright to star in the U.S. touring production. The national tour began on 17 September 1928 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. [13] 1951 UK tour [ edit ]

In 1927 the play was brought to Broadway by producer Horace Liveright, who hired John L. Balderston to revise the script for American audiences. In addition to radically compressing the plot, Balderston reduced the number of significant characters. Lucy Westenra and Mina Murray were combined into a single character, making John Seward Lucy's father and disposing of Quincey Morris and Arthur Holmwood. In Deane's original version, Quincey was changed to a woman to provide work in the play for more actresses. If you want to see them in person, you can swing on by to the Special Collections on the third floor of the Main Library. Otherwise, on October 28 th, 11:00am – 3:00pm, we will be hosting a Halloween Pop-Up Exhibit on the first floor of the Main Library, where the complete construction of Dracula: A Toy Theatre will be the star of the exhibit, along with a showcase of some of our spookiest comics and fanzines. Balderston's revisions for the Broadway production included removing characters to reduce the total cast from eleven to eight. The characters of Arthur Holmwood and Quincey Morris (in any form) were completely removed, while Dr. Seward was aged up from one of the suitors to father of main female character. Harker now has nothing to do with bringing Dracula to England, it was some other unnamed real estate agent, who helped the Count to buy property in England. Ironically it is mentioned that Harker did visit Transylvania once and even heard some stories about Dracula’s castle, but this journey was completely unrelated to Dracula himself or his relocation to England and is simply treated as one of Harker’s many trips across Europe.Frank Langella, star of the 1977 Broadway revival, reprised the role of Count Dracula in the 1979 film version directed by John Badham.

Vieira, Mark A. (1999). Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. p.42. ISBN 0-8109-4475-8. The Era gave a positive review to the original production in 1924, calling it "very thrilling". [41] The paper also gave a positive review to the Little Theatre production in London, praising its "breathtaking excitements" and comparing it favorably to the Grand Guignol shows in Paris. [42] To stage the production, Deane was required to submit the completed script to the Lord Chamberlain for a license under the Theatres Act of 1843. The play was censored to limit violence – for example, the count's death could not be shown to the audience – but was approved on 15 May 1924. [8] Dracula is directly said to be Vlad the Impaler - John Harker mentions, that when he was in Transylvania he heard of Castle Dracula and of a famous Voivode Dracula who lived in the castle centuries ago and fought the Turks. Van Helsing later identifies Dracula as this very Voivode. Dracula also himself says that he is 500 years old, placing his origin in the 15th century. [40] At the start of the story, the Harkers are already married, Dracula is in England, and Lucy Westenra (renamed Westera in the play) is dead. The action of the play occurs primarily in the Harkers' home. To better match the actors available in Deane's company, he changed the character of Quincy Morris from a man to a woman. [36] Other characters, such as Dracula's vampire brides, were omitted. Deane also modernized the setting to the 1920s; Dracula arrives by airplane instead of a ship. [37] Changes between original version and revised version [ edit ]

Frank Langella played the lead in this production, which used the play-text by Hamilton Deane and John Balderston. The last time this play had been brought to Broadway, the lead had been Bela Lugosi.

Steinmeyer, Jim (2013). Who Was Dracula?: Bram Stoker's Trail of Blood. New York: Penguin. p.284. ISBN 978-1-101-60277-5. OCLC 858947406. Leonard, William Torbert (1981). Theatre: Stage to Screen to Television: Volume I: A-L. Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-1374-2. OCLC 938249384. Stuart, Roxana (1994). Stage Blood: Vampires of the 19th-century Stage. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. ISBN 0-87972-660-1. OCLC 929831619. Deane made several other changes from Stoker's novel in his adaptation. He streamlined the story by omitting all scenes set outside of England, including the opening sequence of Jonathan Harker visiting Transylvania and the final sequence of Dracula being chased through Europe. [35] Jonathan Harker did help Dracula to buy property in London, but he did it without ever leaving England and met the Count only after he arrived in London and became the Harkers' neighbor.Theatre Magazine complimented Peterson's performance as Lucy in the 1927 Broadway production, calling her "the lightmotif of Dracula ... [whose] fair comeliness shines through every scene like a flood of sunlight in a chamber of horrors". [43] Adaptations [ edit ] Radio adaptation [ edit ] It should be noted,” Goreyana writes, “that all the sets for Dracula were hand painted by talented scene shop artists. Every cross hatched line on the walls, furniture, and floor had to be recreated to size by hand.” This is indeed impressive, and Gorey is probably right: the sets, which he also seemed to loathe, were probably more deserving of the Tony than the costumes. “The overall aesthetic,” says Rutigliano, “matches the period of the original Broadway run, the 1920s.” (The production won another Tony for Most Innovative Revival.)