ATLRetro

In JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, the son of God is reborn as a rock star, and likewise, in Little 5 Points Rockstar Orchestra‘s HAUS VON DRACUL, PART 1, premiering this week at 7 Stages, as Rob Thompson struts confidently emoting on the power of blood, so is Count Dracula, the iconic vampire dark lord of fiction. And that’s just as it should be in a production that purports to resurrect the rock opera and translate its iconography into the horror genre. Thompson dominates the stage with his petulance, cockiness and powerful voice, Jim Morrison meets Ozzy redressed as Vlad the Impaler with a long dark mane, a Gothic red velvet vest so pointy it looks like it could cut you, and a cape shaped like bat wings that unfurl at key moments in the action.

That HAUS VON DRACUL, composed by Thompson and directed by 7 Stages artistic director Del Hamilton, hits all the right notes with the character of Dracula is gratifying and makes the production worth seeing on its own, but the gratifying surprise is Chris Love’s electrifying performance as Jonathan Harker. In most screen versions of the DRACULA story, Harker is a handsome but dull protagonist who gets the story going by delivering real estate papers for the count’s new property in England to Dracula’s castle and gets bitten by the vampire wives. He’s also the boyfriend of Mina, whom Dracula, once arrived in London, covets and seduces.

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Children of the night, rejoice. The Little 5 Points Rockstar Orchestra is driving a stake into your preconceptions of rock opera as a dead-and-buried art form and putting the bite back into vampire lore at 7 Stages this week with HAUS VON DRACUL, PART 1. The production marks another collaboration between long-time Atlanta musician Rob Thompson (Ghost Story, Blistered), also owner of Java Lords Coffee House & Bar, who also plays the Count, and horror Renaissance man Shane Morton (Silver Scream Spookshow) who also created savage set design and make-up for the Rockstar Orchestra’s A KRAMPUS CHRISTMAS at 7 Stages last December.

Chris Love as Jonathan Harker in Haus Von Dracul, Part 1. Photo Credit: Nicole Boroski

ATLRetro caught up with guitarist Chris Love, who plays hero Jonathan Harker, this week, to dig up more about HAUS VON DRACUL and why a vampire rock opera makes for the perfect Valentine-week date.

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