Dracula

The stake that was driven through Dracula's heart at the end of the Bram Stoker novel that introduced the vampire to the world did not do a very good job of killing the fanged fellow, and it certainly hasn't kept him in his coffin. He keeps being brought back in films and on stage for yet another swoop. The latest vehicle for transporting Dracula back from the undead is a stage piece called Others, which the theater group Bricolage performed last night at the Painted Bride Art Center.

When Bela Lugosi says "I am - Dracula" in Tod Browning's imperishable horror classic Dracula (1931), it's not so much an announcement as an unassailable declaration of the truth. Before he went down for the Count in the film, Lugosi honed his indelible portrait on the stage in the Broadway play on which the movie is based. Lugosi, a Hungarian emigre, knew little English and he did his lines phonetically, accounting for the eerie, slow delivery that scared the daylights out of audiences in the '30s and still has an icy power today.

Area residents who would like a chance in the spotlight are invited to audition for parts in the thriller, Dracula, to be performed by the Haddonfield Plays and Players in late October through early November. The auditions will be held tonight and tomorrow night at 7:30 in the Performing Arts Center, 957 S. Atlantic Ave., Haddonfield. Dracula, also called The Vampire Play, is a show based on the Bram Stoker novel, said Alan Rosen, who directs and also does public relations for Haddonfield Plays and Players.

If anyone can get you - yet again - to sink your teeth into Dracula, it's actor Christopher Patrick Mullen. This is no simple task: On stage, the vampire story, like Dracula himself, stubbornly refuses to die despite several versions that (also like Dracula) appear stillborn as soon as the lights go up on them. Mullen makes a bloody fine Dracula. He also makes an eerie asylum patient who feasts on the blood of insects and spiders, a well-meaning doctor, a gun-toting Texan, and an ever-more-imperiled real estate agent named Jonathan Harker in Dracula: The Journal of Jonathan Harker.

With its new "The Complete Dracula" series, Dynamite has done the virtually impossible - infused fresh blood into one of our culture's oldest characters and engaged readers who feel he is old hat by telling his story in a new and exciting way. Ironically, they've done this by having authors Leah Moore and John Reppion painstakingly piece together Bram Stoker's original masterpiece. The fruit of their labor is that for the first time in 112 years, Stoker's work has been fully restored and his tale can be told as he envisioned it - and as only comics could successfully tell it. Stoker's original novel - though a classic - could be a bit hard to follow.

The many fans of Leslie Nielsen's klutzy Lt. Frank Drebin in the frenetically paced Naked Gun series may go to Dracula: Dead and Loving It in the hope of seeing Naked Gun. But for all of Mel Brooks' proven skill as a parodist, his comedy is relatively toothless and doesn't exploit Nielsen's gift. Brooks' finest spoof is Young Frankenstein, whose immortal lines include "Pardon me, boy, is this the Transylvania Station?" and his credentials in deriding the conventions of the horror movie are unrivaled.

Right now, growth industries flourish by making products smaller and faster. Politics shrink to sound bites, correspondence to e-mail, meals to energy bars, news to headlines on CNN. Ballet audiences, however, buck this trend, demanding the three-act story ballets that were the rage in the 19th century, set in faraway, even imaginary, times and places. In bookstores, short stories surge in popularity, but in the opera house, short ballets languish next to such blockbusters as Swan Lake, Giselle, Coppelia, and Don Quixote.

If you happen to be in the neighborhood of 20th Street and Delancey Place over the next couple of months, better keep your neck covered. Especially if you're a young woman. Dracula, the vampire, has a taste for young women's blood. Some people say Dracula is just a legend. Some people say Dracula is dead. Ha! If Dracula's dead, how come so many people in so many places are celebrating his 100th birthday? Answer that, you doubters. Actually, it's not his 100th birthday; vampires, the undead, live for centuries.

All is darkness. As the black slowly lightens, we see that we're in a cave and that a tiny fire flickers in the distance. We can barely make out figures huddled about the flame. Slowly we move toward the brightness. As we get closer, we see that the figures are prehistoric women and men wearing animal furs. At the sound of a distant howl, they respond as one, leaning closer to the fire. We move in close to a grizzled face, its left eye sealed shut beneath thick scar tissue. At the sound of another animal cry, the good eye seems to blaze, then squint.

AT RENLUND MEMORIAL PARK in Glassboro, Jason Artis, 7, of Glassboro, is a convincing Dracula. He was there for a Halloween party, which included a hayride.

For Halloween weekend, match the horror-fiction author with his or her work. Answers: Below. 1. L.A. Banks. 2. Stephen King. 3. Ira Levin. 4. Susie Moloney. 5. Edgar Allan Poe. 6. Horacio Quiroga. 7. Anne Rice. 8. Mary Shelley. 9. Bram Stoker. 10. Koji Suzuki a. The Dark Tower, The Gunslinger . b. Dracula . c. A Dry Spell . d. Frankenstein . e. Interview With the Vampire . f. Ring . g. Rosemary's Baby . h. Stories of Love, Madness, and Death . i. Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque . j. The Vampire Huntress Legend series.

The New Jersey Legislature periodically revisits a handful of ideas that have come to be known as "Dracula issues": They may look dead in the morning, but they rise to live again at night. Freshman State Sen. Donald Norcross (D., Camden) recently breathed a little life into a Dracula that's been around nearly as long as Transylvania's fanged count. He introduced a bill that would require all New Jersey public employees to live in the state. State Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D., Gloucester)

The vampire whose unquenchable thirst for blood Bram Stoker chronicled in the 1897 classic, Dracula, has returned. Again. And once again, history's ultimate revenant has oozed into our world out of the dread pen of a Stoker. The count's postmodern, postmortem return was engineered by Stoker's great-grandnephew Dacre Stoker - coauthor, with Dracula expert and screenwriter Ian Holt, of Dracula the Un-Dead, a terrific and terrifically bloody sequel to Bram's book, set in London 20 years after the first book closes.

With its new "The Complete Dracula" series, Dynamite has done the virtually impossible - infused fresh blood into one of our culture's oldest characters and engaged readers who feel he is old hat by telling his story in a new and exciting way. Ironically, they've done this by having authors Leah Moore and John Reppion painstakingly piece together Bram Stoker's original masterpiece. The fruit of their labor is that for the first time in 112 years, Stoker's work has been fully restored and his tale can be told as he envisioned it - and as only comics could successfully tell it. Stoker's original novel - though a classic - could be a bit hard to follow.

"You're not in Phoenix anymore," Charlie Swann tells his teenage girl, Bella, welcoming her to the rain-drenched, vampire-pocked Pacific Northwest town of Forks, Wash. And if that line echoes a famous one from The Wizard of Oz, well, so be it, because in Twilight - the surefire hit adaptation of the first book from Stephenie Meyer's mega-selling saga - Bella Swann, like Dorothy Gale, is in for the ride of her life. A pheromone-drenched high school romance rife with heavy-duty Dracula stuff, Twilight - directed with savvy humor by Catherine Hardwicke - turns vampirism into a metaphor for teen lust.

'You're not in Phoenix anymore," Charlie Swann tells his teenage girl, Bella, welcoming her to the rain-drenched, vampire-pocked Pacific Northwest town of Forks, Wash. And if that line echoes a famous one from The Wizard of Oz , well, so be it, because in Twilight - the surefire hit adaptation of the first book from Stephenie Meyer's mega-selling saga - Bella Swann, like Dorothy Gale, is in for the ride of her life. A pheromone-drenched high school romance rife with heavy-duty Dracula stuff, Twilight - directed with savvy humor by Catherine Hardwicke - turns vampirism into a metaphor for teen lust.

Our region is celebrating Halloween early by offering themed events for families throughout the weekend. Right in Philadelphia, Boo at the Zoo is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Philadelphia Zoo. This well-known event will feature trick-or-treating stations throughout the grounds, storytelling, games, and music, along with the chance for visitors to meet the Walnut Street Theater's Hairspray cast. Representatives from radio station B101FM will be there to offer games, music, and prizes.

If anyone can get you - yet again - to sink your teeth into Dracula, it's actor Christopher Patrick Mullen. This is no simple task: On stage, the vampire story, like Dracula himself, stubbornly refuses to die despite several versions that (also like Dracula) appear stillborn as soon as the lights go up on them. Mullen makes a bloody fine Dracula. He also makes an eerie asylum patient who feasts on the blood of insects and spiders, a well-meaning doctor, a gun-toting Texan, and an ever-more-imperiled real estate agent named Jonathan Harker in Dracula: The Journal of Jonathan Harker.

It was a dark and stormy night five days before Halloween. The scene was set for Pennsylvania Ballet's Dracula. And just as Nutcracker rings in the December holiday season, Dracula adds a nice ghoulish touch to late October. Friday's opening-night show at the Academy of Music offered some strong performances, detailed costumes and sets, and interesting technical tricks. The costumes were designed by Judanna Lynn, who is also responsible for the new costumes the company is unveiling this year for Nutcracker.

Dracula's eternal appeal, especially at Halloween, sets the stage for Ben Stevenson's lavish ballet about the literally bloodthirsty count from Transylvania. Pennsylvania Ballet presented "Dracula" to great success in 2000 and again in 2003. And that's no wonder, considering it's one of the rare ballets with an evil star. Audiences adore his spider-eating henchman Renfield, 18 vampire wives and the creepy crypt in this combination of spectacle, theater and stunning dancing. It's both a terpsichorean and technical challenge, with the Count and his conquest zooming into the air, thanks to Broadway wizards Flying By Foy. The lurking, spooky music by Franz Liszt, adapted by John Lanchbery, provides the ideal mood for Bram Stoker's famous tale.