FEATURE: TOP 5 VAMPIRE MUSICALS

#1 - Dracula

Wait, that boring Frank Wildhorn show that flopped on broadway in 2004?  Well, it turns out that dud of a show was completely reworked and a brand new production premiered in St. Gallen, Switzerland a year later.  This revised version of the musical featured 6 new songs, a heavily edited book, and was performed by a 40-piece orchestra.  The cast was lead by Thomas Borchert and Drew Sarich who alternated playing the title role of Dracula.  The show was even further reworked for a production in Graz, Austria in 2007 which starred Borchert and Lyn Liechty as the two leads.  This version featured new, ‘modern’ rock orchestrations and various other revisions. The production was considered a rave by many fans and critics alike.

Dracula is number one on this list because it’s the perfect example of a show that shouldn’t have been written off so quickly by critics.  It came to broadway too early, but Frank Wildhorn and the show’s supporters didn’t get up hope.  The newer, reworked productions of Dracula are vastly improved, and English language productions have been popping up all over the UK, United States, Canada, and other locations.  The show reminds us that vampire musicals may struggle on stage, but they aren’t dead (so to speak).