A vampire story gets turned on its head — and its gender — at Orlando Shakes this fall, where five actors are sprinting through dozens of characters in a farcical retelling of Bram Stoker’s gothic classic. Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors, running through Nov. 8, asks its cast to gender-swap roles, change costumes at lightning speed, and occasionally improvise their way out of trouble, all while chasing laughs rather than screams.
Orlando Weekly's Matthew Moyer describes the production as a satirical comedic farce built on Stoker’s vampire tale, one where veteran performers Paul Vogt and Kelly Bashar are in the midst of a lengthy Orlando run, according to Orlando Weekly. The show was written by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen, a writing team confirmed by Orlando Shakes, and directed by Jim Helsinger. Vogt takes on the roles of Mina and Van Helsing, while Bashar plays Renfield, Dr. Westfeldt, and the ship captain — a gender-bending juggling act that sits at the heart of the show’s comic engine, per the same Orlando Weekly account.
A Cast Stretched Thin, On Purpose
Vogt and Bashar have performed the show together for about a year, and the production has played in five different cities before landing in Orlando, the paper reports. The pair’s history goes back further than the show itself — they first met while doing Streetmosphere at Disney-MGM Studios in the early 1990s, long before either imagined playing a blood-sucking count’s supporting cast. Bashar has also performed with an all-women’s improv Shakespeare group in Los Angeles, and she credits that improv and sketch background with helping her quickly switch between characters mid-scene, according to the Orlando Weekly article.
That quick-change skill isn’t just for show. The production is staged at an intimate venue where performers interact directly with audience members, and it leans on improvisation when things go sideways. In one such moment, the report notes, Bashar used a doily in place of a missing wig during a scene — a glitch folded into the chaos rather than hidden from the crowd.
Local Faces Round Out the Ensemble
Beyond Vogt and Bashar, the Orlando run features cast members Trevor Spence, Fredy Ruiz, and Regina Fernandez, per the same Orlando Weekly report. Spence plays Jonathan Harker and other roles, Ruiz takes on the title role of Dracula himself, and Fernandez plays Lucy Westfeldt along with additional parts — each actor absorbing multiple identities across the night in keeping with the production’s small-cast, big-ambition format.
The Orlando Weekly piece says Matt Palm of the Orlando Sentinel praised the production as a bloody good time; Bashar described it as funny and sexy, while Bashar and Vogt discussed its camp. That tone is echoed by Orlando Shakes' own show page, which bills the production as a two-hour, gender-bending, quick-changing, laugh-out-loud reimagining of the gothic classic. The venue warns of strobe lighting effects, theatrical fog and haze, sexual innuendo, and comic sex and violence for audiences weighing whether to bring the kids.
From Off-Broadway to the Desert to Orlando
This isn’t Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors’ first stop. The show had a successful Off-Broadway run two seasons before landing in Arizona, according to a Talkin' Broadway review published by Arizona Theatre Company. That company’s staging, directed by Greenberg from the Greenberg-Rosen script, used its own five-person cast to pull off the gender-flipped, multi-role format, as Phoenix Magazine reported, even resorting to puppetry where the small ensemble couldn’t stretch far enough. Phoenix Magazine described that production as a furiously paced, intermission-free burlesque of Stoker’s vampire yarn, while the Talkin' Broadway review called it a charming, funny, gender-bending, campy, gothic theatrical love-fest that affectionately spoofs the novel.
Orlando’s version is listed as a two-hour show and keeps the emphasis on audience interaction inside its intimate performance space. The Sept. 23 and 24 preview performances were offered under a Pick Your Price model of $30 to $85, while other ticket prices run from $52 to $85, according to the show’s listing. Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors continues through Nov. 8 at Orlando Shakes.
