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Show I I I ' " L Um ft ; vln (AV A , photo by David Hampshire Are you suffering blood loss, my dear? Count on it! The mysterious anemia of Lucy Seward (Cherie Burns) is investigated by (from left) Joe Thornhill as Harker, Phillip Taylor as Van Helsing, and Rai French as Dr. Seward, in rehearsal for Park City Performances' "Dracula." PCP's 'Dracula' production transforms an old play play earlier this fall. Burnett, who said he had always wanted to work with Jewkes, was scheduled to play Dr. Van Helsing. Then Jewkes had to leave for other committments and Burnett became director the first time in four years he has worked outside his Inter-mountain Inter-mountain Actors Ensemble. There are several actors new to Parkites in the cast. Four of them have worked for the McCarty Modeling Agency in Salt Lake which may result in one of the more stylish-looking Egyptian casts. Phillip "Dracula" McDonald, has done TV commercials and industrial films. In fact, he first played the Count when he auditioned for a Toyota commercial that featured a vampire! He previously appeared on stage in a Salt Lake production of "Of Mice and Men" as Whit, the good-natured cowboy. Dracula doesn't have that much stage time. "If you judged by that, the play would be called 'Van Helsing.' But the scenes I have are nice because they're climactic moments," said McDonald. Several actors have played Dracula Drac-ula John Carradine, Jack Palance, Klaus Kinski, Louis Jourdan, Christopher Chris-topher Lee but both McDonald and Burnett say they are striving for a romantic style, a la Frank Langella's Count of the late '70s. But McDonald also said that Dracula is definitely sinister. "He is a hunter." McDonald said the stage work is stimulating. "The last experience I . had like this was motorcycle racing." Cherie Burns, who plays the heroine Lucy, is a McCarty colleague and a Parkite. "I'm glad the play is in my backyard," she said. Cherie was the host of a syndicated talk show, "Home Show," which played in the Salt Lake market on KSL for 16 weeks this summer. She has also done movies such as "Snow Job" filmed in Park City last winter. This is her first stage play, however. One adjustment, she said, is "making everything so big." She said, "You're supposed to be in a quiet love scene and you have to shout 'I love you.' " Joe Thornhill, another newcomer, plays Harker, the young hero. He admitted he seems to be stuck with the most bland role in the play. But he said it's more of a challenge to play a straight character. Harker is a person torn between love for Lucy and pain at watching her in Dracula's clutches. "He's very sophisticated, which is appealing to my ego," Thornhill said. "I wouldn't be in any other part." Originally from North Carolina, Thornhill is a graduate student at BYU in film. He said he plans to study law and become an entertainment entertain-ment lawyer in the industry. Young actor Phillip Taylor is Van Helsing, the most famous character in the play next to Dracula. He's an expert in exotic diseases called in to help Lucy Seward. He tells her shocked friends she's suffering from vampirism. Says Taylor, "Vampirism "Vampir-ism is as real as anything to Van Helsing. And he gets a little impatient when Dr. Seward doesn't believe him." The role is a challenge in a couple of ways, he said. Taylor is playing someone much older than he. And the character has several speeches, some repetitious, about the danger of Dracula. "In each speech, I try to emphasize a different point," he said. Two other major roles are played by actors long familiar to Parkites. Clayton Maw, playing the maniac Renfield, has appeard in "Bus Stop," "Ten Little Indians," "Streetcar Named Desire" and others. Rai French is the concerned asylum director Dr. Seward, and is known from such plays as "Peter Pan," "This is the Place," "Buried Child" and "Fantasticks." Also in the cast is model Deborah Chapman, playing a maid under Dracula's power. David Van Gelder plays the attendant. Van Gelder is a Coalville resident and had a great deal of theater experience in his former home, Virginia. Said Burnett, "We want to leave the audience thinking that, if they see a guy in evening dress, maybe he would be after their blood." "Dracula" opens Friday, Oct. 19 at 8 p.m. General admission is $5.50. For further information, call the Egyptian at 649-9371. by Rick Brough The Park City Performances cast and crew of "Dracula" face several different challenges with this play. First, they have to realistically convey a familiar story, one audiences may regard as a hoary melodrama. Second, director Ron Burnett has undertaken to update the story to the '80s for the Egyptian Theatre production. Third, actor Phillip McDonald has to deal with the dark shadow of Bela Lugosi and others who have played the Dracula part. Finally, there's the problem of how to move the mechanical bat. The man in charge of flying the bat is stage designer and technical director Mike Kinney. (He also designed the set for "Terra Nova" at Pioneer Memorial Theater and last year's Egyptian play "Death Trap." On Monday night, Kinney looked at the flying blood-sucker hanging from the wings. "We couldn't use a heavyweight bat, so I've got a bat-weight bat." Kinney's set also includes a moving bookcase and a few other tricks we probably shouldn't mention. men-tion. (Suffice it to say the special effects may be the most interestine since the cane appeared "out of thin air" in "Godspell.") In addition, ghoulish sound effects are being supplied for the production by Craig Clyde. To make the effects work, along with everything else, the actors have to believe in the melodramatic premise. Said Burnett, "The hardest thing is to keep out of the realm of the audience falling over itself because it's ridiculous. This could really turn into a farce." In fact, he recalled, when the play premiered in the 1920s, critic Brooks Atkinson called it "a chilling farce." Burnett has changed the script in places to fit a 1980s setting. This involved taking out some flowery language, plus a few passing references to items like an "airdrome." "air-drome." "We could have set it in the '20s," said Burnett. But he stepped in as director when there wasn't much time before opening night. The cast was chosen by Richard Jewkes, who was set to direct the |