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.
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
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.comOld Wounds, a ten-minute play, is published by Smith Scripts
Original ten minute play, Old Wounds. Vic, 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:
The Black Crow Calls received an award and appeared in the online magazine The Druids Egg (Vol. 8 #1 Samhain-Yule) https://druidsegg.reformed-druids.org/newssamhain09-07.htm
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:
Dead City
Severance
Tiwrnach’s Cave
Gladoens Knight of the Rock
Souterrain
