Chaz: Welcome everyone to this edition of “Lookin’ at Louisville”. I’m Chaz, I’m your host. Here with me by my side is, oh, alright Stacey is not with me today, why? I think she got a little scared because I’m at Actor’s Theatre of Louisville and we’re at the production of Dracula. This is Chaz. Now, I’m going there and I’m a little scared. In Halloween, it’s a great event but I’m not going to Dracula so I’m going alone. I got Mark here with me. We’re going to have some fun without Stacey, right Mark? That’s right.
So what we’re going to do is we’re going to be talking to the director and some of the actors and the media relations person tell about Dracula and a lot of great things that happen here Actor Theatre at Louisville, in fact they are the places where in an international event that happens here, yearly, and we’re going to discuss that as well as we’re going to have some food to eat at Intermezzo which is right here in this building so you get to go to Actor’s Theater, you get to go ahead and have some food, you get to have a great experience.
So with all that being said, let’s go get started and have some fun and let’s go see a little bit of Dracula because I want to suck your blood.
Okay, I’m here with Bill McNulty. He is the director and he’s also Van Helsing and the writer. I got to get that, the writer for Dracula, right?
Bill: Yeah.
Chaz: So tell me a little bit about the show, what makes it’s so captivating and so powerful for people to come here?
Bill: Well it’s a shamelessly seat theatrical production. Its field with fortuitous violence and permeated by a desperately sixth sense of humor. Consequently, it’s one of the most popular shows ever done at Actor’s Theatre.
Chaz: Hey, welcome. This is my kind of guy. How long has the show been going on?
Bill: This is the 13th year. Last year however, we changed script. We changed to my adaptation from the much older adaptation. It’s done as an out not and horror genre piece which you don’t see on the stage very often. In fact, I’ve never seen him on the stage before. It’s very physical, very visceral. It’s very emotional, it’s one constant chasing from beginning to end.
Chaz: And how long is it?
Bill: It runs about two hours and 15 minutes including intermission.
Chaz: It’s a never ending assignment, you know.
Bill: We tried, yeah. It’s you know there are a couple of expositional scenes that you have to do to just to tell a story but for the most part we’re running around like watch and limit the space.
Chaz: Okay, wear the makeup and I got Danny here who is the monster in Dracula and then I got Joy, she’s actually applying the makeup. How long is it going to take for this makeup to be adherent to him?
Joy: Well, like 15 minutes it’s really not too bad, it used to be a couple of half an hour.
Chaz: So Danny you got to be really ugly in 30 minutes. It’s pretty late.
Danny: Yeah, it is. I mean, I remember at first when I heard about makeup and all that stuff that I have to wear I got a little worried I haven’t’ worn that much makeup for a show before and all these like you know.
Chaz: I know, you got some eye contacts here. You can have a red—that would freaked me up because I’m not much—I just got scared to—
Danny: Oh, yeah, me too. I’ve always had things that near or in my eye and things like that and then they told me I have to wear contacts. I’d never worn contacts before. When I got finished it took me about like an hour just trying to put those tapes once first and I don’t really big issues with the makeup, it’s actually being really, really comfortable like Julia does a great job with the client and also had there are wig matcher, she’s the one that made this.
Chaz: So she wigs you out?
Danny: Basically. Yeah, she made this contraction, we tried with everyday and it’s actually really comfortable. It’s really easy to just apply and I don’t have to worry about it slipping around or moving around because it was form fitted to my face.
Chaz: You’re first scene is you’re chasing but when you’re jumping from the crowd and here you are in this outfit, I mean and you see the audiences’ response.
Danny: Oh, man!
Chaz: I mean you know especially if there are kids in the audience.
Danny: Oh, yeah. Those kids were amazed, it’s just, it’s craziness from every blackout, every kids, every gunshot and anytime that they see me onstage. It’s just constant screaming. The Actors of Louisville has a reputation of bringing so many new worst to theater and it’s just so renowned in the theatre world as a maker of new art, of new playwrights, of all these big names that work here and come through here and just a stuff that we get to do in the classes that we get to take with all the guests, directors and agents and so on and so forth.
Chaz: So what you’re saying to me is it’s better to be in Actors Theater than in the New York City.
Danny: I believe so. The moment for us, my choice, yeah. This is the best idea.
Chaz: Well, there you go New York City, be that. And you’re up from Michigan. Why is that so important that you’re out here in Actor’s Theatre and especially in an out of town dressed. Why do you want to come here before your trip?
Female: We like this theatre. It’s small, it’s quaint, it’s very personable, we enjoy the actors here.
Male: Yes, this is the only reason we came to Louisville, that the passion of your actors and actresses give theatre a whole new meaning.
Chaz: When they least to say you know we got to have a great time here at Dracula, right? So cheers. But you know after such a great experience I got hungry a lot so we were able to come down to Intermezzo which is right here, I don’t know below Actors Theater and we talk about great food. We had the mushroom, it’s a French restaurant and then I had the assignment on the plank.
Female: I had pasta shells.
Chaz: And of course Mark whose working behind the camera had a hunk of burning meat and it was great. It was wonderful.
Female: Let’s not forget about dessert.
Chaz: It was a brownie. It was a brownie with cheesecake and peanut butter.
Female: And a little bourbon glaze I believe.
Chaz: We like bourbon here in Kentucky. Let’s talk a little bit about Actors Theatre. It‘s internationally renowned and in fact we were talking, you know we got to talk to a couple that came here from Michigan they came here just for the theatre. So tell me and everyone out there watching why is Actors Theatre so internationally well known, what about it’s other side?
Female: You know, we’re professional reaching theatre and what we do we do very well.
Chaz: Oh, you’re much than we do. So what is so great about Actors Theatre of Louisville? What makes it so different from any of the theatre in the country?
Female: I think it’s the new food festivals that we do. We do the Humana Festival that takes place every year. This is our 33rd year. We are the longest running new food festival in the country. And what that means for Louisville is that they get to see things before anybody else in the world. What it means for the world or internationally is that they could see what the American playwrights is thinking because these are American playwrights, these are all new works never been produced anywhere else, they’re world premieres.
Chaz: But before it goes to Broadway, it get’s shown in Louisville.
Female: Yes. The ideas, you know we give it a full production. Other theaters do new food festivals but they don’t produce it fully like we do.
Chaz: Yeah, this is like. But if you actually got to work in Actors theatre or you got to be at the Humana Festival at place, you’re it. You’ve actually accomplished a huge goal before that next step, it’s like Broadway or this could be the ticket to the next level.
Female: Absolutely! If you’re an emerging playwright, you want to be produced in Humana Festival because you’re going to be seen by the right people who have the right power to make decisions about whether you know what things you’re going to be producing in regional theatres across the country and hopefully on Broadway or off Broadway and then maybe get a commercial pickup from here.
Chaz: Well, you know the more information about this beautiful place please go to actorstheatre.org and of course for more information about this you can send me an email for this story or this show at podcast@gotoLouisville.com or send me an idea for an upcoming episode and we’ll send you some cool Louisville swag. Well, since Stacey is not here can you help me close?
Female: I would be delighted to.
Chaz: Alright, well as always—
Female: You’re looking in Louisville—
Chaz: See you real soon.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services