Cynthia Erivo To Play 23 Roles In ‘Dracula’ One-Woman Show In London

EXCLUSIVE: Wicked’s Cynthia Erivo will play Bram Stoker’s demonic vampire and 22 different roles in Dracula, a one-woman theatrical extravaganza set for subsequent 12 months in London’s West End, from the creatives and producers behind Sarah Snook’s Broadway and London triumph The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Stoker’s gothic shocker explores the darkish corners of Victorian-age sexuality, concern and need. The story, first revealed in 1897, is each alluring and horrifying, stuffed with terrifying and dreamlike imagery.   

Dracula, tailored and directed by Kip Williams, marks Oscar-nominated Erivo’s return to the stage for the primary time since her Tony Award-winning position as Celie in The Color Purple, which she starred in for 2 years in New York earlier than exiting in January 2017. The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art-trained artist performed Celie in London, and honed her craft in a number of performs and musicals within the UK earlier than relocating to the U.S.  

The Sydney Theatre Company manufacturing of Dracula will play the Cameron Mackintosh-owned Noel Coward Theatre for a restricted 16-week engagement February 4-May 31, 2026.

Michael Cassel, producer and CEO of Australia’s Michael Cassel Group, and Adam Kenwright, a high London and Broadway producer and ace worldwide advertising guru, reunite to supply the STC manufacturing as they did with Dorian Gray, which they took to London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket and the Music Box, the place it runs till June 29. 

Confirming the Dracula information completely to Deadline, Cassel says “the stars have aligned and we’ve got an amazing actor in Cynthia to join us.”

The preliminary strategy to Erivo was made 9 months in the past in the midst of the hectic world promotional tour for Wicked.

Buoyed by Erivo’s curiosity, Cassel and Kenwright moved with applicable supernatural velocity to hook up the London-born star with Williams. He confirmed her archival video of the STC manufacturing of Dracula that performed Sydney’s Roslyn Packer Theatre for 4 weeks final 12 months with Aussie actress Zehra Newman taking part in the nocturnal fiend.

Williams spoke with Erivo about what he phrases “cine-theatre,” the place actors work together with stay and pre-recorded video feeds.

Later, Erivo noticed Snook’s efficiency, now Tony-nominated, on the Music Box and visited together with her afterwards. Obviously, that present’s vastly completely different from Dracula, however it enabled Erivo to ascertain how Williams phases his interactive work with digital camera operators shifting with balletic grace throughout the stage as an artist performs a number of roles.

“She has really spent most of her time with Kip just talking through the inspiration and the dramaturgy of it all. For them to connect in that way has been important for them because this is a show that they go and create together,” Cassel explains throughout a name from Melbourne, the place he’s been overseeing a manufacturing of the musical Beetlejuice on the metropolis’s Regent Theatre.

Cassel factors out that the West End’s Dracula won’t “be a blueprint” of the Sydney model. “I think what’s so exciting, I think for her, and for us, while we know what the story is, they get to go and create this role in the rehearsal room in London together, and that was very appealing to Cynthia to put her own interpretation on the role and explore that with Kip.”

The checklist of 23 characters that Erivo will carry out embody the fanged Count Dracula, who sustains life by sucking the blood of the residing; Jonathan Harker, a newly certified solicitor who travels to to satisfy his new consumer who resides in a fort nestled within the distant Transylvanian mountains; Mina Murray, Harker’s fiancée; her pal Lucy Westenra; and Professor Van Hesling, vampire hunter and professional in occult lore.

To pull off all these and different roles “you need great actors,” says Cassel, “and we just couldn’t be happier with Cynthia leading the charge.”

Wicked followers will little question be elated to be taught that Erivo will sing in Dracula, however only one track.

The unique piece within the present consists by Clemence Williams, who, because it occurs, has been nominated for a Tony Award for sound design for The Picture of Dorian Gray.

RELATED: Broadway Review: Sarah Snook Goes Fantastically Wilde In ‘The Picture Of Dorian Gray’

Cassel was fast to state that Dracula‘s “a play not a musical, but there is an original song in it” that will probably be carried out in direction of the top of the 1 hour, 50 minute present. 

Wicked: For Good, half two of director Jon M. Chu’s display adaptation of the Broadway hit musical, opens November 21, whereas rehearsals for Dracula begin late December.

However, with Dracula performances starting February 4, Cassel and Kenwright are cognizant of the truth that Erivo might have to skip off to at least one or two awards reveals and are making provision within the present’s efficiency schedule ought to that ultimately come up.

“We’re taking that into account,” Cassel provides, “putting all those pieces in place so that Cynthia can be a part of everything else that’s going on in her life — we’ll build that in.”

“Again why we’re just so thrilled Cynthia has agreed to choose this as a project she really wants to be a part of. When you look at Sarah as well, these actors have these amazing experiences on film or television, but the draw to the theatre, and indeed to do something that is so challenging, I think it’s testament to the caliber as actors that these individuals are. It’s challenging what they’re being asked to do. It’s a world apart from what Cynthia’s been doing recently, and she can go and find that character and be challenged night in, night out as all good actors are in front of a live audience and I think that’s really thrilling.”

Erivo has a number of different tasks forward of Dracula. They embody internet hosting the 78th Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on June 8. Following that, she is going to star alongside Teo Yoo (Past Lives) and Isabel May (1883) in director Takashi Doscher’s motion thriller Karoshi for 87Eleven and Lionsgate.

There are different films in Erivo’s diary, plus taking up the position of Jesus in a live performance model of the Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Jesus Christ Superstar on the Hollywood Bowl in early August.

When Stoker revealed his epistolary novel, critics noticed it as a mirrored image of points of Victoria-era society. Cassel nods whereas observing that Williams in his adaptation delves “way more a lot into the metaphorical energy of Dracula and reorienting the psychological battle between concern, need and denial, and I believe that’s way more resonant now, that’s my view.

“It’s got a great contemporary lens on it.”

Cassel and Kenwright refuse to speak about additional life for Dracula with Erivo after the Noel Coward Theatre. Broadway has not been talked about, but.

“All of our focus is on the West End and to make that a success and welcome Cynthia into the world of Dracula,” says Cassel.