Kendal Community Theatre marks 200 years since the first ever vampire story was published with five brand NEW Vampyre stories told around the town on Saturday 6th July 11am – to 1pm.
They following week they produce the melodrama adapted from the story, The Bride of the Isles or The Vampire Vanquished, and THREE more brand new Vampyre tales in the crypt of Kendal Museum 7.30pm Wednesday 10th- Saturday 13th July.
In 1819 on the shores of Lake Geneva when Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, Byron’s doctor, John Polidori, wrote The Vampyre and published it anonymously. Everyone assumed it was by Byron and thought it was the best thing Byron had ever written which peeved him so much John Polidori had to come clean.
The next year the story was turned into a hugely popular ‘melo-drame’ or melodrama, The Vampire or The Bride of the Isles, by James Planché. Reworked and shortened as The Bride of the Isles or The Vampire Vanquished by Love by director Chris Taylor, it is set on the shores of Staffa in the wilds of Scotland. Lady Margaret daughter of the Baron of the Isles is preparing for her marriage to the Earl of Marsden. When the Earl appears, he bears an uncanny resemblance to Marsden’s younger brother Lord Ruthven.
But Ruthven is dead, killed years before by bandits in Greece. Or is he? Lady Margaret’s devotion to her father the Baron overcomes the dark desires of Lord Ruthven, and the vampire is indeed vanquished by love.
Kendal Community theatre asked local and not so local writers Robert Armitage, Michael Atkinson, Celeste Bonfanti, Laura Carter, Sue Cook, Michael Hartley, Lesley Hawkins, Steve Rowlinson, Emily Unia, Theresa Urbainczyk to write short, no more than five minutes long, vampire stories set in and around Kendal. Some are comic, some eerie, some set in the past, some in the present.
Accompanied by music and dance FIVE will be told on Saturday 6th July in venues around the town including the Birdcage, the Market Place, and TWO will be displayed in the Library.
THREE will be performed as a prologue to The Bride of the Isles or The Vampire Vanquished by Love.
Vampyres! Tales around Town Saturday 6th July 11am-1pm, Town Centre FREE!
If you want to dress as a REGENCY Belle or Beau join us at the Town Hall at 10 am.
The Bride of the Isles or The Vampire Vanquished by Love by James Planché adapted by Chris Taylor Kendal Museum 10th-13th July 7.30pm
Tickets £10/£5 students and benefits, from Brewery Arts Centre 01539 725133 www.breweryarts.co.uk/whats-on/lakes-tickets