Lord, what food these mortals be! Bram Stoker’s Dracula collides with Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night’s Dream in a puckishly ‘biting’ woodland mashup where no ruffled neck is safe. Join us, if you dare, for the ORIGINAL douchey teen vampire drama. The Nightmare 'Dream' comes to the New York International Fringe Festival in August 2013, presented by Bloody Shakespeare.
The play, approximately 50 minutes in length, uses text only from the two source works. Writer/director Neal J. Freeman's original plan was to develop a Midsummer production with a gothic horror setting, to give a playful wink to the idea that the Elizabethans thought of "fairies" in a much more sinister way than we are accustomed to. Upon beginning to locate the Shakespeare characters within a horror universe, Freeman discovered surprising parallels to the characters in Stoker's Dracula, and The Nightmare 'Dream' was born!
Bloody Shakepseare is Neal J. Freeman and producer Heather Siobhan Curran. We worked together for three years as Executive Director and Artistic Director of Brooklyn's acclaimed The Gallery Players and collaborated there on over a dozen productions. Having left the organization in May 2012, we are excited to renew our collaboration on the world premiere of The Nightmare 'Dream'.
We are working from a budget of $7,500 for this festival production. The largest part of this goes to paying the actors and creative team for their work, per the terms of the Actors' Equity Association agreement with FringeNYC. Your contribution here assures we have enough left over to pay for costumes, rehearsal space, and the many other miscellaneous expenses needed to get us to the finish line!
We are excited to offer illustrations by Michael C. Malbrough (who illustrated our logo) as perks for our higher level donors. Mike will take a photo you provide (of you or another person) and "mash it up" with a horror icon of your choice (Dracula, Frankenstein, whatever you choose) to create a custom caricature just for you! View samples of Mike's work.
More about us: Neal is a member of SDC and holds an MFA in Directing from Brooklyn College and a BA in Theater Arts from Cornell University. His play A Letter from Bataan was a 2012 and 2013 semi-finalist for the Eugene O'Neill Center National Playwrights Conference. As Artistic Director of The Gallery Players from 2003-2012, Heather directed, produced, or executive produced dozens of shows during her tenure, earning the theater over two dozen New York Innovative Theater Awards and nominations. She is currently on the board of New York Theatre Barn developing new works and is a member of the League of Professional Theatre Women.
Thank you for considering making a donation, and helping us produce the world premiere of this brand new play!
Neal & Heather
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