Gallery • 14 Photos

Keira Kress

Sophomore Maisan Hasan as Dracula stabs sophomore Tomiwa Adewoye as Thomas Seward onstage in “Dracula.” The dress rehearsal took place on Oct. 29 in the studio theater.

Actor and sophomore Maisan Hasan

How was Dracula introduced to you and why did you audition? 

So, I am in class and (someone’s) like “The shows for this year are Dracula, Treasure Island, and the musical is unknown,” because they didn’t have the rights to it, but I’m like “Man, I would really love to do Dracula,” so I’m just like, okay, I’ll just wait to audition. I get my sides which are just excerpts of the script and I read them. Then Steckbeck goes, “Can you get a side for Dracula specifically?,” and I’m like “Oh my God, OK.” I read it, and then I’m waiting for callbacks, which is a second audition, but you really read for a character and you kind of do some background on them, and I kind of just read the side and I apparently did really well so now I’m Dracula. 

How did you prepare for this role? 

Well, for some of the scenes where I’m more charming, I researched Victorian era gentleman’s etiquette, just to get the manners down, and then for some of the scenes where I’m more evil, I watched clips of the original Dracula movie and also I got excerpts from the novel. When (Dracula is) hunting in the original book, (he was) described as a “large panther stalking,” so I watched clips of black panthers to learn how they hunt and get that physicality. 

Did you have a vocal coach for the accent?

Yes, her name is Devan. She’s really sweet, and she taught us what all the accents were and how to do that. 

What has been the most challenging part of this process for you? 

Probably the accent because I tend to just stay on one note the entire time, but I had to get variations with my lines. I think that I finally got that recently and it’s really helped sell the character. 

What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned as an actor?

A big takeaway is to be still—I’m a very ADHD person, so I kind of just have to be still and also have stage presence without overdoing it. Because I’m a very comedic actor—I’m a big actor—I just have to be there and have my presence fill the room. 

What’s your favorite memory from on the show.

It’s an inside joke in the show, but the actress who plays Sullivan—when she first tried to do an Irish accent, it was on her “There’s a storm brewing” line, and it came out really funny. I think that read through was really great.

Director and senior Lainey Weishaar

How did you feel about the dress rehearsal?

There’s definitely points where I was getting a little nervous about how things went, but I think it tied up in the end to be pretty exceptional. 

How did you receive the opportunity to direct this show? 

At the beginning of the school year in (Repertory Theatre), we all have auditions for who wants to be in what show and everything so you fill out an audition form. On the form you can also volunteer to possibly be a student director or an assistant director, and I just knew from the very start of the school year that I wanted to be involved in Dracula, so I was like, “I’m gonna write that down because I don’t even need to be on stage, I just need to be involved with this show.” Eventually, Steckbeck picked me, along with Camil (Rae). 

What about Dracula appealed to you?

For me, I think part of it is that it’s such a name recognition show. There are very few people I imagine who you can be like, “Oh, I directed Dracula,” and they won’t know what you’re talking about. So part of it was I wanted to be part of something that I felt like there was an expectation for to live up to and hopefully exceed. 

What has been the most challenging part of that? 

It has been hard to find a balance between being respected by the cast and being bossy of the cast, because I want them to do what we need them to do in a timely fashion, but I also don’t want to be yelling like a lunatic to make them listen. I guess finding the balance of respect and friendliness has been the hardest part. 

How has this experience changed you as a person? 

I feel like it’s given me a greater appreciation for what goes on off-stage. I’ve always been in the shows, so seeing more of what it’s like to build and set up those shows has been really interesting for me. 

What’s your favorite memory from this process? 

I wrote a book and illustrated it and I’ve been selling it copies to people in theater and just my friends in general, and people who want to buy it; for some of them I wrote notes in it to cast members and I gave one to one of our leads, Maison (Hasan), who plays Dracula, and I was just telling him that I think he’s really great, and I’m very confident in him, and having him come to me the next day being like, “I really appreciate what you wrote.” It made me feel so connected to the cast.

Jessica Xie, assistant stage manager and senior

What is your role in this production?

I’m the assistant stage manager, so that means I do the administrative stuff that Jadon doesn’t do like helping with rehearsal records, helping manage actors, giving notes to the crew, that sort of thing. It’s more the picky stuff—it’s tedious to do but you have to do it or else nobody else will. 

What do day-to-day rehearsals look like? 

For regular rehearsals, it’s about two hours. Actors will do warm ups, then we’ll just block, we’ll run the show, we’ll do coaching, fight calls—whatever needs to be done. During tech week t’s pretty intense, because actors need to be in , full dress, full costume, full wig, full makeup. Then tech has to go through, like, all the pyro stuff, all the fog, all the haze, the (carbon dioxide) cannons—we have a bunch of explosives and gunshots. So it’s really intense, because there’s so much stuff that could go wrong in so many places. But nothing can go wrong. 

What are you most excited for about this production?

I’m so excited to hear the audience reaction. I do tech because I love hearing people go “Huh!,” you know what I mean? There are so many cool elements and shows that I don’t think people usually see in high school productions. Potentially people will be like “Oh, it’s just a bunch of high school kids running around having a fun time,” but it’s an intense show, and we take in a lot of elements that people don’t only expect from us. The pyro is going to be amazing, and I love seeing people get caught off guard, or shocked, or scared, or seeing how they react to something that I’ve helped made. It’s so fulfilling. 

What’s your favorite memory from working on this show?

Favorite memory? Gosh. In act one, there’s a scene, another scene, and then there’s one really long scene where I do nothing during that time. So I just love being backstage with all my crew, just chilling, having a good time. It’s just a nice moment to just sit and relax and kind of decompress after the really intense first (two) scenes. It’s just nice to just be back there with people I really care about—people I’ve done tech with for pretty much my entire high school career.