It all began one sunny afternoon at the gym. I was being very manly and pushing heavy weights up and down and back and forth. All of a sudden, I realize that Darren was in the gym! I smoothly set my current weight down and sauntered over to say hi. We chatted for a bit, mostly making fun of meeting in the gym, when Darren got this too large grin on his face and said, “I’ve got this great idea: Dracula!”

And now, over a year later, we’re in the final rehearsal stage for PUSH’s re-telling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Our version of Dracula departs from the original novel for mostly practical reasons. We don’t have the numbers to fill out Stokers’ main cast, much less all the supporting roles. We also don’t have a good way of staging a weeks-long cross-European chase with trains and boats. At least, no way that wouldn’t leave the audience catatonic from intense boredom.

The central liberty we’ve taken with the story is to tell it from the perspective of the madman Renfield. In Stoker’s novel, Renfield is a sort of motion sensor for Dracula, his actions parallel Dracula’s movement and desires. Renfield also serves a crucial plot point by becoming the weak link in the defense of the asylum he is housed inside. A local writer/actor and friend of ours, Danny Hoskins, wrote and speaks Renfield’s part on stage with us as we alternately become his nightmares, fantasies and actual characters.

(YouTube doesn’t seem to be working with me today. Video’s are here.)

On the spiritual side of things, Dracula is an interesting story to tell. There have been a lot of sidelong glances from many church friends who ask “Why Dracula? Isn’t it all about EVIL?” The short answer is: yes it is. Our ‘Dracula’ is a story about absolute evil. In a society where morality is more of an opinion than a standard, we felt this would be a particularly compelling idea. It breaks the social norm and makes our vampire story a bit different what pop culture is producing. It’s a conversation point, which is what we always hope will occur when people watch PUSH perform.

We’re pretty excited about Dracula, if you couldn’t tell. This is by far the biggest project we’ve ever worked on – the show is almost an hour long. It’s also a chance for us to merge the many worlds PUSH draws our art form from. The narrative of Dracula draws out our classical story-telling mime background. The horror element allows us to indulge the more extreme movement training. There’s even a moment where I get to bring out some of my old circus training and hang from the ceiling.

We’ve got more videos and pictures up on our Facebook page if you want to take a look (which I’m sure you do). We’re using social networking pretty heavily for this show, so there will be plenty of updates before the show goes up.

Whew!

Just finished a week of shows at the Strong National Museum of Play here in Rochester. Although the week started out rough with me getting over a strong showing from my allergies, the onset of warm, sunny days and greatly reduced stress levels (e.g. quitting my day job) helped swing the week into the positive.

Of course that doesn’t mean easy. Two shows a day and three on Friday, eleven total in five days. Admittedly, they were shorter than our normal set but getting warmed up and ready for each show took up the slack there. PUSH must be on the up and up because the job’s getting harder every month.

A highlight of the week was the fact that we got free passes to the museum during the run. The place is just amazing. Besides the National Toy Hall of Fame there are some awesome exhibits. There’s ‘Reading Adventureland’ that has interconnected ‘houses’ devoted to almost every genre of children’s literature you can imagine. Tucked inside each house you can find almost every book you read as a child – which is only the start of the coolness. Then there’s the ‘Field of Play’ section that has everything from air cannons to DDR to a sideways room tucked inside.

The current traveling exhibit tucked in is called “Grossology” which takes every impolite or disgusting body function and just goes there (except THAT one – it’s still a kids’ museum!). It features such wonders as ‘Urine – The Game’ and a life-size version of ‘Operation’. There’s also a giant faucet, ‘Nigel Nose It All’, that drips snot and ‘Burp Man’ with a visible digestive track belching. Oh, and I won’t tell you about ‘Toot, Toot’, ‘Vomit Center’ or ‘Y U Stink’.

The crowning joy, however was the last afternoon when I got to sit down on Sesame Street and play a game of chess with DJ Stevenson. Just too cool. Surrounded by the old rough brick architecture, chalk drawings and good old-fashioned PBS education just made the week for me. “Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away…”