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Though she read for the role of Lucy Westenra in a production of Dracula at Claremont Opera House this weekend, World Under Wonder theater troupe director Sean Edward Roberts had other ideas. Rather than present her neck to the evil title character, Boyle will be wearing the fangs.
“I went into the audition and did one of Lucy’s monologues,” Boyle, who lives in White River Junction, said last week between rehearsals for the show, scheduled for this Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. “I wasn’t expecting to get this role at all. Then Sean messaged me a couple of days later and offered me the lead.
“I said, ‘Sure: That sounds awesome.’ ”
While it helped that Boyle had played a traditionally-male lead role a couple of years ago — Jack the choirboy-turned-alpha-hunter in Lord of the Flies — her casting as the vampire grew partly “out of necessity of who showed up to audition,” Roberts wrote in an email last week.
“But it has worked out great. Since Dracula is a monster trying to eat people and has no romantic interests within the story, it does not really matter what gender the beast is.”
The way that World Under Wonder, which Roberts founded in 2014, is staging Bram Stoker’s vampire epic, the audience might be too busy watching Dracula, Lucy and the other characters revolving on a platform in the middle of the opera house stage, to scratch their heads over the Count’s gender identity.
And spectators occupying the 70 seats surrounding the platform almost certainly will be ducking for cover.
“They’re what we’re calling the blood-bath seats,” Boyle said. “We’re giving out ponchos to the people in them. It’s going to be insane. We have fire extinguishers that spew blood. It’s going to be really intense.”
Boyle, who first acted in Hartford High School musical productions of Beauty and the Beast and Crazy for You, cut her teeth on intense roles while playing the co-lead in the Newport-based Performers Playground troupe’s adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.
Then in the Claremont-based Amplified Arts version of Hamlet this spring, a production set in the 21st century, she found herself researching not only Shakespeare’s play but the symptoms of dependent personality disorder, the better to build to Ophelia’s breakdown.
“That was a hard character,” Boyle said. “I haven’t done anything where I’ve had to play crazy before.”
Other than the Stoker novel itself, the only research tool Boyle used for motivation was Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 adaptation of the book, starring Gary Oldman as the count.
“I was never really into Twilight,” Boyle said of the blockbuster series of films that grew out of Stephanie Meyers’ young-adult novels. “I saw a few minutes of one of the movies, and it didn’t do much for me. … In a lot of vampire movies, there’s a romantic side when they’re luring their prey. In this play, she’s just, like, ‘Oh, I’m hungry, and there’s a snack right there.’ ”
The World Under Wonder community theater troupe performs Dracula at Claremont Opera House on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights at 7. For tickets ($15 to $25) and more information, visit claremontoperahouse.org or call 603-542-4433. The ensemble also performs the play on Aug. 25 at Main Street Arts in Saxtons River, Vt.
Best Bets
Classicopia pianist and artistic director Daniel Weiser joins forces with violinist Ralph Allen, cellist Iris Jorner and violist Marcia Cassidy in playing quartets by Gustav Mahler, Johannes Brahms and Joaquin Turina at three venues this week, starting tonight at 7:30 with a performance at St. Denis Roman Catholic Church in Hanover, where admission is by donation.
On Friday night at 7:30, the ensemble plays a house concert at a private home in Hanover, where there is limited seating at $40 a person, which includes refreshments.
The tour concludes on Saturday night at 7:30 at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon, where admission is $10 for church members and $20 for all others. To reserve tickets and learn more, visit classicopia.org/concert/the-power-of-four or call Marcia Colligan at 603-643-3337.
The East Bay Jazz Ensemble leads off the Brownstock Music Festival at the former Ascutney Mountain Resort in Brownsville on Saturday afternoon. After East Bay’s set at 1, singer-songwriter Michael Veitch takes the stage at 2. Next to the microphone will be singer-songwriter Jason Cann at 2:45, the Andy Harrington Band at 3:45, the Sullivan/Davis/Hanscom/Rivers ensemble at 4:45 and the Davis Brothers Garage Band at 5:30. Gates open at noon and close at 8. Admission is $10 to $15, proceeds from which benefit Ascutney Outdoors’ community recreation program. Campsites are available on Friday and Saturday nights. For more information, email brownstockvt@gmail.com or search for it on Facebook.
The Mill Band kicks off Orford’s Bandstand Day of Appreciation on Saturday afternoon at 4, with a set of Americana music. And after the Friends of the Orford Libraries serve cake, the Conniption Fits take the stage at 7. In the event of rain, the music and the celebration will take place in the Orford Congregational Church.
The New York Theatre Workshop completes its run of plays-in-progress at Dartmouth College’s Hopkins Center on Saturday, starting with a staging of Dar He: The Lynching of Emmett Till at 4 in the afternoon. And on Saturday night at 7:30, the workshop performs This Exquisite Corpse. Admission to each show, in the Hopkins Center’s Warner Bentley Theater, costs $9 to $13. To reserve tickets, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-646-2422.
On the theme of “The Queen’s Delight,” the Green Mountain Monteverdi Ensemble of Vermont and the recorder consort Far & Away perform songs of William Byrd and tunes of the Elizabethan era at the Seven Stars Arts Center in Sharon on Sunday afternoon at 4. For tickets ($5 to $20) and more information, visit sevenstarsarts.org.
The New London Barn Playhouse’s production of On Golden Pond begins on Wednesday, with a matinee at 2 in the afternoon and a 7:30 show that night. Norwich resident and Emmy-winning actor Gordon Clapp stars as the crusty patriarch Norman Thayer in this adaptation of Ernest Thompson’s family drama, which runs through Sept. 3. To reserve tickets ($20 to $40) and learn more, visit nlbarn.org or call 603-526-6710.
Theater/Performance Art
The Old Church Theater in Bradford, Vt., completes its production of the William Missouri Downs comedy Mad Gravity with performances at 7:30 on Friday and Saturday nights and at 4 on Sunday afternoon. To reserve tickets ($6 to $12) and learn more, call 802-222-3322 or email reservations@oldchurchtheater.org.
Music
Norman Williams Public Library in Woodstock hosts a Morning Music Jam today at 9:30. Acoustic musicians of all ages and skill levels are welcome, as are listeners.
Sensible Shoes serenades the Lebanon Farmers Market between 4 and 7 this afternoon in Colburn Park.
The world-music duo HuDost performs on the green in Woodstock Village this afternoon at 5:30.
Haywire performs a set of Americana at the weekly Feast and Field Market in Barnard tonight starting at 5:30.
The Stovepipe Mountain Band appears at the Denny Park gazebo on Main Street in Bradford, Vt., tonight at 6.
The indie-rock ensemble The Outdoor Type plays on the bandstand at Lebanon’s Colburn Park tonight at 7
The final weekend of the Central Vermont Chamber Music Festival begins tonight at 7, with jazz and chamber musicians holding a free workshop on improvisation at Randolph’s Chandler Music Hall.
The festival continues Friday night at 7 in the Chandler’s downstairs gallery, with players of string instruments leading a symposium; while admission is free, donations are welcome.
On Saturday morning at 10:30 in the music hall, the Island Time ensemble plays the steel drums, with a set list aimed at a youth audience. Admission at the door is $6.
On Saturday night at 7:30 at the Chandler, the musicians will focus on jazz-flavored string quartets by the likes of Debussy, Piazzolla and Jerome Kern, and classically-influenced interpretations of jazz recordings by Chet Baker and Stan Getz. Admission is $25.
The festival concludes on Sunday afternoon at 12:30 at Bethany Church, across Main Street from the Chandler, with chamber musicians performing Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor; admission is by donation. Before the concert, the festival will serve brunch at 11 a.m. in the Esther Mesh room, in the Chandler’s Upper Gallery; admission is $10.
To learn more about the festival, visit cvcmf.org.
The Kearsarge Community Band performs at the Haddad Bandstand in New London on Friday night at 6:30.
The Pillsbury Slow Boys play blues and swing at two venues over the coming week: a free show on the Norwich Green on Friday night at 7, and a performance on the common in Strafford on Tuesday night at 6. While admission is free to the Strafford concert, donations toward the renovation of the Town House spire are welcome.
Singer-guitarist Quentin Callewaert performs at the Harbor House Livery in Sunapee Harbor on Friday night at 7. General admission costs $5 to $15.
The Northeast Fiddlers Association invites musicians and listeners alike to the association’s monthly jam and meet-up on Saturday afternoon in East Randolph. The gathering, at 103 Route 14, the home of Lee Deyette, runs from 12 to 5. Admission is by donation to the local food shelf.
The B3 Brotherhood plays funk, soul and jazz from 4 to 7 Saturday afternoon at Green Mountain Bicycles in Rochester, Vt., during the shop’s 30th-anniversary celebration. The party starts at 10 a.m. and runs through sunset, with free admission to listen to the music and peruse the store, and a range of all-you-can-eat food for $20. To learn more, visit greenmountainbikes.com.
Guitarists Tom Pirozzoli and Gerry Putnam perform on the Flanders Stage at Sunapee Harbor on Saturday afternoon from 5 to 7. And on Sunday afternoon from 1 to 3, Pete Merrigan visits the venue to play folk, rock, blues and alt-country.
Singer-songwriter That Virginia! performs the monthly house concert at 30 Summer St., in Bradford, Vt., on Saturday night at 7. Admission is by donation.
The Fischers and The Jennings, a chamber quartet, plays works of Dvorak, Chopin, Mendelssohn and Karol Szymanowsky on Sunday afternoon at 2, in the Little Studio at Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish. Admission is included in the $10 entry fee to the historic site.
Soulfix saxophonist Michael Parker and singer Alison “AliT” Turner perform rhythm-and-blues at the Anchorage restaurant in Sunapee Harbor on Sunday afternoon from 3 to 7. The rest of the Soulfix ensemble joins Parker and Turner at the Grantham Recreational Park on Tuesday night at 6.
Rusted Chrome plays on the bandstand of the Newport Common on Sunday night at 6.
The Bill Rosen Quintet plays jazz from the Ben Mere Bandstand overlooking Sunapee Harbor on Wednesday night at 6:30.
Bar and Club Circuit
Guitarist Ted Mortimer and bluesman Chris Kleeman pull into Windsor Station tonight at 7:30. Following them to the venue over the coming week are The Pilgrims and Atlantic Veil on Friday night at 10, Moxley Union on Saturday night at 9:30 and Happy Folk on Tuesday night at 6.
Pete Merrigan kicks off the weekend of music at Salt hill Pub in Newport tonight at 7, with a set mixing folk, rock, blues and alt-country. Following him to the microphone are Club Soda on Friday night starting at 9 and singer-songwriter Tad Dreis at 9 on Saturday night.
Tirade frontman Toby Moore plays several instruments during an acoustic set at Salt hill Pub in West Lebanon on Friday night at 8. And on Saturday night at 9, Better Days performs classic rock, blues and funk favorites.
The weekend lineup at Salt hill Pub in Lebanon features singer-songwriter Tad Dreis on Friday night at 8 and Flew-Z with a set of rock and pop on Saturday at 9 p.m.
Singer-songwriter Thomas Knight plays Salt hill Pub in Hanover on Friday night at 8. GrooveSum fills the venue with blues-based rock, funk, Americana and jam-band rhythms on Saturday night at 9.
Fry Daddy frontman Carlos Ocasio plays a solo show in the tavern at Jesse’s in Hanover on Friday evening starting at 5.
Soulfix performs at the Lake Morey Resort in Fairlee on Friday night at 8:30.
A busy week of music at the Skinny Pancake begins on Friday night at 8:30, with Flipside performing blues, soul and alternative rock. Next to the venue are singer-songwriter River Glen and members of the Americana band The Blackberry Bushes on Saturday night at 9. And on Wednesday night, Davida and the Vagabonds deliver a jolt of acoustic jazz and soul; to reserve tickets ($18; admission at the door is $20), visit skinnypancake.com or call 603-277-9115.
The Squids set the rockin’ rhythm for dancing at Skunk Hollow Tavern in Hartland Four Corners on Friday night starting at 9.
The Sensible Shoes Trio rocks the Sunday-night buffet this weekend at Loch Lyme Lodge in Lyme. The meal begins at 6 and the music around 7. And on Wednesday night between 5:30 and 7:30, Out on a Limb provides the soundtrack to the lodge’s weekly cookout. For reservations for both meals and shows, and for more information, call 603-795-2141.
Open Mics
Ramunto’s Brick & Brew Pizza in Bridgewater hosts an open mic starting at 7:30 on Thursday nights. Participants get a free large cheese pizza.
String players of all ages and abilities are welcome at the weekly acoustic jam session at South Royalton’s BALE Commons on Friday night from 6:30 to 10.
Joe Stallsmith leads a weekly hootenanny of Americana, folk and bluegrass at Salt hill Pub in Hanover on Monday nights at 6.
Bradford’s Colatina Exit holds an open mic, Tuesday nights at 8.
Jim Yeager hosts his weekly open mic at 8:30 Wednesday night at Hartland’s Skunk Hollow Tavern.
David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com and at 603-727-3304.