by Alex Gallagher
Web Master
The Northern Patriot Players recently performed Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors just in time to kick into the spooky season. Written by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen, the play explores a more comedic take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, featuring odd romance, dance breaks, and ghosts riding scooters. Because of how many talented actors auditioned, the play was double-casted—meaning there were two actors per role and two different casts that alternated their performances. Nonetheless, each cast did an excellent job at bringing the play to life.
The first opening night of the 9th of October on Thursday would be a vital part of the performance’s future runnings, as it would give first impressions on the quality of the play. When expectations were high, the members of the first cast team managed to hit it out of the park with their exceptional performance. Junior Eli Herrin stormed the stage and shocked the audience with his charismatic interpretation of Dracula’s character. Cheers could be heard reverberating through the audience every time Herrin made a grand entrance. Everyone in the audience was on the edge of their seats trying to expect the unexpected throughout the story of twists and turns.
The cast whose opening night was on Friday, October 10th had Junior Patriot Lily Glista as Dracula, who brought forth a charming stage presence that tied in well with the sarcasm of her dialogue. The very first scene of the show presents the talent of the dance ensemble, who also put a lot of time and effort into their choreography, which was very evident in the final product. Their talents emphasized the storyline and helped give more characterization to Dracula outside of the script. Junior Patriot Meredith Stocking, a member of the dance ensemble, describes her experience: “It was very interesting because being in the dance ensemble for Dracula is different from being in a dance ensemble for other shows,” she explains, “it was more so telling a story and less of the typical high-energy dance numbers that you’re used to.”
Right before each show, the audience was greeted with a pleasant soundtrack designed by Northern High School students from theatre director and teacher Rachel Sparks’ acting, foundations of technology, and stagecraft classes. The final integration of the sound design into the show was executed by Sophomore Zach Blackwelder. Many of the show’s audio clips were sourced from YouTube. Exporting the files from there to QLab—the software that allowed the audio to be heard through the speakers during Dracula—took around five hours, according to Blackwelder. Aside from himself, Blackwelder gives most of the credit to Senior Lilly Bobick, Junior Rachel Seekford, Sophomore Fátima Rodríguez Burgos, and Mrs. Sparks. Individually, each person spent around 12-15 hours sourcing, trimming, and tweaking the sound design. Blackwelder says that his favorite part about the sound design was perfecting the timing of the “ding” sound in the performance. “Throughout the entire thing we were trying to get the timing right,” he says, “it wasn’t even that hard, but every time we got it, there were big celebratory screams from everyone in the cast and crew.” Furthermore, he said his favorite scene overall was the “back-and-forth” between Lucy’s romantic persuasion and Jonathan’s cautious remarks while Mina was sulking in the background.
Both casts put forth their best effort and laid all of their time and energy out on the stage for the audience to soak up. Many of these hard-working Patriots will also be in the upcoming Spongebob Musical taking place in the spring of 2026, so be sure to cheer on your fellow classmates in March.