{"id":4162,"date":"2017-05-25T00:19:28","date_gmt":"2017-05-25T07:19:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/Becomeimmersed.com\/?p=4162"},"modified":"2019-11-18T12:03:35","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T20:03:35","slug":"rise-fall-dracula-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/rise-fall-dracula-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Cadame Company – The Rise and Fall of Dracula – Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rise and Fall of Dracula <\/em>is world premiering at the Hollywood Fringe Festival <\/a>on June 9th<\/sup>. However, this isn\u2019t your typical retelling of Dracula. Cadame Company<\/a> has incorporated striking elements from Bram Stoker\u2019s novel and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu\u2019s Carmilla<\/em> to create a novel and innovative narrative. It\u2019s \u201ca dance-based, immersive, reimagining\u201d of the legendary vampire\u2019s story told from a female perspective.<\/p>\n

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\"Cadame<\/p>\n

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Cadame Company<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Cadame Company, the group behind this fresh reimagining, is comprised of Cassandra Ambe, Melissa Ortiz, and David Kayser. Leveraging the strengths of each member, Ambe works as the choreographer, Kayser as the composer, and Ortiz as the director.<\/p>\n

Drawing from an accessible and classic story allowed the group to flex their creative muscles and prove that they can reimagine something in their own style. \u201cI love the idea of taking familiar characters and putting a different twist on their story.\u201d In doing so, they plan to surprise their audience with a Dracula reinterpretation they are not expecting at all.<\/p>\n

Playing with expectations has always been a factor for Cadame Company. A lifelong love of seeing how twists on an understood narrative can affect the delivery and reception of an experience are part of the group\u2019s DNA. By reinterpreting a classic, they\u2019re able to surprise the audience and allow them to \u201cexperience something totally different in art.\u201d Their first brush with reinterpretation occurred when Ambe and Ortiz worked on a school production of Doctor Faustus together and Ambe played the part of Mephistopheles, which is traditionally played by a man. It allowed Ambe and Ortiz to recognize how making one alteration could change the fabric of the whole show. As Ambe explains, \u201cI like creating something I wasn\u2019t expecting and never being able to see it \u2018the regular way\u2019 again.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Rise of Dracula<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

This performance will build on this very concept, and participants will never be able to see the famous vampire in the regular way again.<\/p>\n

In The Rise and Fall of Dracula<\/em>, Dracula is a woman.<\/p>\n

This is where the idea of making a change and seeing how it plays out comes into focus. Ortiz sets the stage, \u201cOur Dracula has vastly different beginnings than Stoker\u2019s, so her goals are different, but the theme of power is central to our piece.\u201d Stoker\u2019s Dracula wants to reclaim the power he once had, but Ortiz had a different view of her Dracula. Instead of just seeking power, she realized, \u201cThe journey became more about Dracula needing an equal.\u201d<\/p>\n

This meant that Cadame Company had to find the right woman to bring Dracula\u2019s power, mystique, and allure to, well, not life, but you get the idea. Years earlier, Ortiz and Ambe had watched a staged version of Dracula together. They felt like the performance missed the mark in more than a few ways, chief among them: the casting of Dracula. Even by intermission, they were left cold by the lead actor. Ortiz joked with Ambe, \u201cIf I were ever to create a performance of Dracula, I would cast you as Dracula.\u201d As their \u201clong brewing\u201d project began to take shape, Ortiz realized that her earlier joke wasn\u2019t so off the mark; it was actually the right direction and choice for their show. They decided Ambe was a perfect fit for their vision of Dracula.<\/p>\n

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\"Cadame<\/p>\n

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An Immersive Experience<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

With the narrative and the casting in place, Cadame Company had to decide how and where to stage their show. While they had thought about making the show immersive because they felt it would be more interesting for both them and the audience, they hadn\u2019t completely settled on the idea. Their top priority was finding a space that felt right for their first show together. As they searched for venues, they found most were either black box or standard theaters.<\/p>\n

Everything clicked when they found the Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre. Not only did the theater provide \u201cinteresting architecture,\u201d it offered them a variety of rooms to work and play in. Cadame Company \u201cwere particularly excited about Stephanie Feury\u2019s back rooms and wanted to use them in their story,\u201d which would mean that the audience would move through the space with the actors. With that, they were settled on taking a step into the immersive realm with this show.<\/p>\n

The Rise and Fall of Dracula<\/em> will guide up to thirty-six audience members through the Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre. Throughout their time with Dracula and her cohorts, the audience should expect, \u201ctheir role to constantly shift throughout the piece.\u201d We don\u2019t want to spoil what that means, so you will have to step into Dracula\u2019s world and experience it yourself. What you can know though, is that the show will be guided through the theater and all of its rooms. It will also feature interactive elements as the audience moves along with the characters during the show\u2019s seventy-five minute run time.<\/p>\n

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An Original Score<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Rise and Fall of Dracula<\/em> will also feature original music composed for the show by Kayser. As Cadame Company began to work on this show, Kayser \u201cwas inspired to write one or two compositions.\u201d As work continued he wrote another piece of music, and then another, until he found he had composed enough for the whole length of the show. Throughout the process, he worked closely with Ortiz who helped him capture the perfect atmosphere and feel for each song, \u201cwhile giving him his creative freedom to interpret what a scene needs.\u201d Together, Kayser and Ortiz worked with Ambe as she choreographed the show, tying together the strengths of the three founders of Cadame Company.<\/p>\n

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\"Cadame<\/p>\n

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For the Bold, the Curious, the Strange<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

To help sell their show, Cadame Company designed a marketing campaign around personal, handmade letters. Ambe admits that a \u201cweird\u201d obsession with paper and a love of handwritten letters led her to the idea, which has featured the various missives dropped at interesting locations in the Los Angeles area. To really help sell the letters, the envelopes are sealed with wax, not only differentiating them from normal postcards, but also making them far more enticing to open. The letters themselves are addressed to \u201cThe Bold\u201d, \u201cThe Curious\u201d, and \u201cThe Strange\u201d and feature writings that help set the tone for what\u2019s to come in The Rise and Fall of Dracula<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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What\u2019s Next for Cadame Company?<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Ortiz, Ambe, and Kayser already have ideas bouncing around for their next few projects, but are waiting until after Fringe before they dive into something new. Some of those projects may be theater-based and some of them may be film-based, but they\u2019re still waiting to decide. One thing all of Cadame Company is agreed on is that they\u2019d like to explore the idea of remounting The Rise and Fall of Dracula<\/em> as a, \u201cfull two-hour experience\u201d in the future.<\/p>\n

The Rise and Fall of Dracula<\/em> premieres at the Hollywood Fringe Festival on Friday, June 9th<\/sup> and then runs periodically through June 24th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rise and Fall of Dracula is world premiering at the Hollywood Fringe Festival on June 9th. However, this isn\u2019t your typical retelling of Dracula. Cadame Company has incorporated striking elements from Bram Stoker\u2019s novel and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu\u2019s Carmilla to create a novel and innovative narrative. It\u2019s \u201ca dance-based, immersive, reimagining\u201d of the…<\/p>\n

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