Plays:
Dracula Dark King two act play newly Adapted from the Bram Stoker novel by
Jeffrey T. Heyer
9 actors, 10 characters: 5M / 4W / (1 double-cast)
Approximate Playing time: 1 Hour, 45 Minutes
In his one true composition of genius, Bram Stoker created a tale which stirs up what the Greeks meant their dramas to elicit: pity and horror. A hundred years and more later, the character of Count Dracula and some of the themes he personifies continue to fascinate western civilization reflected in a current resurgence of interest in vampire and occult storylines. Heyer’s
Dracula Dark King masterfully envelops the audience in Dracula’s enigmatic world. The struggle between the allure of immortality and life’s pleasures and sorrows plays out in the late 1800’s between the harsh walls of Count Dracula’s castle in Transylvania and Dr. John Seward’s office and Sanatorium near London.
Dracula Dark King casts a new light into Stoker’s shadows, but, unlike any other script, does so while returning to the grotesque beauties of the novel. It brings out Stoker’s buried psychological themes without damaging the way in which he kept them hovering tantalizingly just below the surface of his plot. A disturbingly beautiful play,
Dracula Dark King is by far among the best adaptations available and worthy of consideration for any stage. Available at
heartlandplays.com
Inviting audiences to forget whatever preconceptions they may have regarding “mad scientists,” the play starts aboard the cramped cabin of early nineteenth century explorer Robert Walton. In the barren Arctic ice Walton has rescued a lone wanderer on a desperate mission. This starving man is Victor Frankenstein. Fighting against a life-threatening state of exhaustion, Victor strives to win Walton’s assistance by revealing an incredible scientific achievement and its unforeseen consequences. Delirious, Victor begins to lose track of whether he is narrating his history to his host or whether he is actually reliving it and the play becomes a living fever dream.
We all know the name Frankenstein but how many of us ever read teen-aged Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s original novel? The quirky brilliance of this young woman’s nightmare has been sadly obscured by all too many reductions of the theme in cheap movies, TV shows and comic books (which is not to say there haven’t been any good ones). This new adaptation was created to bring the peculiar strengths of Mary Shelley’s immortal novel to the stage for the first time. Much of the power of the novel derives from its Rime of the Ancient Mariner style of narration as Victor refuses to let Walton go until he has told his whole tale. We see the world through the eyes of Victor Frankenstein, and then through those of his artificial creation. This intensely personal narrative is reproduced in theatrical fashion as the action of this play blends present time events with Victor Frankenstein’s fever visions. The visionary scientist (far more of an artist and far more intriguing than most of his film incarnations) strives to come to terms with his ghosts and to win the assistance of his captive audience with a desperate narrative of his incredible success and its terrible consequences
I hope this play will give audience members, directors and producers a
chance to explore humankind’s most basic questions and rawest
emotions. At the same time, its fever-dream nature should provide
ample opportunities for experimental theater.
Werewolf at Bay a full-length play version of the novella House of the Moon
Approximate Playing time: 90 Minutes
The mysterious Stuart Morgan crosses a continent in search of a reclusive, and reportedly dead, scientist who gives his name only as Victor. Gradually we discover that the strange and desperate Morgan is a werewolf seeking Victor’s help in obtaining release from his nightmarish condition. We also discover that Victor’s own condition is equally desperate. Already a scientific outcast, Victor has now become a vampire caught between the worlds of the living and the dead. Victor agrees to aid Morgan only if the fiercely principled lycanthrope will bring a certain young woman, Ilse, to his stone lair. Once Victor convinces Morgan to do this, together with Ilse, the three, each damaged in a different way, and each with their own highly-charged agendas, seek to create some sort of balance together which will enable all three to seek their own lost humanity. But society closes in relentlessly; first in the form of two ruthless bounty hunters, then in the form of two far more dangerous police officers – one a vengeful lone wolf, and the other an official representative of the all-powerful state. Their clash leads to an explosive climax. Available at
heartlandplays.com
Old Wounds, a ten-minute play, is published by Smith Scripts
Original ten minute play, Old WoundsVic, an injured tough, brings his old companion Lupino, a corrupt police officer, to a seedy motel in order to arrest a mysterious man whom Vic claims attacked him. The two begin to suspect that Raecher is a forgotten figure from their dark mutual past who has altered his appearance to make himself appear to be a vampire—an embodiment of vengeance. As each character tests how far the others will go, verbal sparring soon explodes into violence. Available at https://www.smithscripts.co.uk
Short Stories:
Here’s that title on the Table of Contents page of The Druids Egg
https://druidsegg.reformed-druids.org/newssamhain09-00.htm
When The Road Calls Your Name was podcast by Tales to Terrify winter of 2017. Reprinted online by Furious Gazelle 12/16/21. Available at https://thefuriousgazelle.com/page/2/?s_heyer
The Man from the Sea appeared in TheWiFiles http://wifiles.com
The five stories below appeared in Cover of Darkness (Sams Dot Publishing) in Jan., March, June, Sept. and Dec. respectively in 2012 under my usual pseudonym Ross:
The Dead City
Severance
Tiwrnach’s Cave
Gladoens Knight of the Rock
Souterrain
Literary Bio:
Jeffrey T. Heyer has made his living in the theater and other media for forty years and with 87 entertainment industry employers. He works as actor, director and playwright. He was the first Actor-in-Residence at Pacific Repertory Theater in Carmel, CA; has been an Artistic Associate for eighteen years at The Western Stage in Salinas and co-founded the Actors Collective Media Entertainment in Carmel. He has had scripts produced at the GroveMont Theatre (Monterey), Pacific Repertory Theater (Carmel), The Western Stage (Salinas), Actors Collective Media Entertainment (Monterey County), B3 Theatre (Phoenix, AZ) and elsewhere.
