Welcome to Kansas City Repertory Theatre!
I’m so glad you’re here for this thrilling new adaptation of Dracula, created by the dynamic artists, Vanessa Severo and Joanie Schultz. Together, these two exceptional artists have cracked open one of the most enduring gothic legends and reimagined it through a lens of empowerment, sensuality, and female agency.
Traditionally, the women in this story have been cast as victims, as shadows, as silent figures in the orbit of Dracula’s myth. Vanessa and Joanie boldly flip that script, placing the women at the center, giving them voice, complexity, and power. What emerges is a Dracula that feels both timeless and startlingly new — a story about fear, desire, secrets, and survival told in a way
that resonates now.
At KCRep, we’re passionate about championing artists who dare to challenge the familiar and invite us to see with fresh eyes and perspective. I’m deeply proud to share Vanessa, Joanie and this world class group of designers and actors work with you, and I’m grateful that you’re here to experience this reawakening of Dracula.
Enjoy the journey into the dark — and the light.
See you at the theatre!
Stuart Carden, Artistic Director
Understudy - Renfield, Arthur
Understudy - Dracula
Q&A with Joanie Schultz + Vanessa Severo
Interview by JANA LILES, Director of Marketing & Communications
Q: What first drew you to Dracula as a story worth retelling now?
A: Vanessa: I have always found something deeply terrifying about immortality. The option to choose it may sound enticing at first, but then you’re stuck in your own personal hell. Watching others you love live — and then leave. While you are trapped in a hell of your own making. How does one reckon with that? Do you live in it alone, or bring in others, because misery loves company? The choice is dangerous, and that’s where the story lives for me.
Joanie: Exactly. The novel is full of vice, secrets, lies, and addiction — themes that are still incredibly relevant today. Every character in our version of Dracula carries a shadow. No one is innocent, and I love that. It feels honest.
Q: When you approached this adaptation, what did you want
to uncover or emphasize that often gets overlooked in traditional versions?
A: Joanie: One of the
biggest challenges was that women are basically objects in the novel — one-dimensional and often sidelined. We wanted to
disrupt that.
Vanessa: Older versions of Dracula pigeonhole the female characters as weak, valued mostly for their beauty and innocence. We threw those rules out. We stripped the story down to its bones and reimagined it as a kind of high-stakes chess match — where the Queen might just be the most powerful player.
Joanie: Also, the novel is epistolary — letters, journals, clippings. None of that is inherently dramatic, so every adaptation has to invent. That gave us freedom: to center different voices, to fill in the silences, to reclaim agency where the novel withheld it.
Q: How did the two of you come together on this project?
A: Vanessa: Joanie and I collaborate in a way that is like a conversation without words. We can compliment each other creatively, and it’s kismet. So in taking on a female-forward Dracula, it was easy. We knew what story we wanted to tell, and we saw it visually, immediately.
Joanie: What she said! We have a way of creating together which is completely symbiotic. The idea to take this source material and make the women the subject, not the object, rose really organically and we ran with it.
Q: What role does gender, power, or desire play in your reimagining of the story?
A: Joanie & Vanessa:
They’re at the center of everything. Gender in this adaptation is fluid — it slips, reshapes, and destabilizes old power structures. Desire, too, is a driving force: dangerous, liberating, and often taboo. At its core, this story is about claiming agency — over one’s body, identity, and fate.
Q: Are there particular influences — literary, cinematic, or theatrical — that shaped your vision for the piece?
A: Vanessa: I have always loved old-timey theater magic.
Shadow work, simple acts of magic done with a string, fog, and of course, Nosferatu. Dracula is as much of the earth as he is spirit, and blurring those things visually is astounding.
Joanie: Analog theater magic is so fulfilling; it’s fun to figure out how to make magic happen. Also we were, of course, influenced by Bram Stoker’s novel — we were interested in the tension, the sensuality, and the shadows between the lines.
Joanie & Vanessa:
From the first workshops to our premiere production and now this new staging in Kansas City, Dracula has been shaped by the extraordinary artists who’ve joined us along the way. Each collaborator has brought insight and imagination that pushed the piece further than we could have envisioned alone. In this current production, our creative team of world-class designers and theatermakers continue that legacy — expanding the world
of the play with bold ideas, rigorous craft, and a shared spirit of invention.
Q: How do you want the audience to feel when they walk out of this production?
A: Vanessa: Like a secret has passed between us.
Joanie: Yes, haunted. But not just by fear. We hope the audience walks away questioning their desires, their beliefs about control and freedom, even their own boundaries. Ideally, they’ll carry this Dracula with them like a secret they can’t quite shake.
Q: What’s next for both of you? How can our audiences follow your journey?
A: Joanie & Vanessa:
Joanie is directing and Vanessa is movement directing Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women next at Portland Center Stage and Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. Vanessa’s solo show Frida…A Self Portrait, that Joanie collaborated on as director, continues performing at Milwaukee Repertory Theatre and ACT Seattle this spring and summer. This winter, Vanessa will also direct Everybody at KCAT.
And this isn’t the end of our collaborations — we’re already scheming our next big project together. You can keep up with us at vanessasevero.com and joanieschultz.com.
