Cleveland Public Theatre The James A. Levin Theatre 6415 Detroit Avenue in Cleveland PHOTO GALLERY	With original music by Cleveland's legendary Gothic Industrial band
	Cast Sadie Grossman ... Mary Margi Herwald ... Claire Tim Keo ... John Doug Kusak ... Percy Matt Zitelli ... George Production Team Sarah Kunchik ... Stage Manager Dennis Yurich ... Sound Design

What is THE VAMPYRES?

Sex, blood and rock n' roll.

Witness as a young doctor enters a mysterious coffee house, encountering an old flame, two musicians with a taste for blood, and the seeds of his own destruction.

THE VAMPYRES features original music by Cleveland's legendary gothic industrial band Queue Up.

Inspired by the theater of the GRAND GUIGNOL, this production is a stripped-down version with an emphasis on a newly revised text, as well as heightened violence, sexual behavior, and startling blood effects.

Don't bring the kids ... but do bring that special someone.

The VAMPYRES is loosely based on the short story, THE VAMPYRE, written by John Polidori in 1819.

The personal physician to Lord Byron during his exile in Europe, Polidori spent time with Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, and her cousin Claire Clairmont during the summer of 1816. One stormy night at the Villa Diodati they staged a contest writing ghost stories. That evening's games helped form Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN, and Polidori based his tale of a modern, sophisticated monster in human form on the abusive Byron ... though this idea was originally Byron's, a fragment of writing he grew tired of and abandoned.

Ironically, when first published THE VAMPYRE was attributed to Byron, a fact which deeply upset both men. Deep in debt at the age of 26, John Polidori allegedly committed suicide by poison.

Without Polidori's contribtuon, the world may never have been visited by Bram Stoker's DRACULA, and the vampire as we know it may never have become the unsettling icon that it is.

Last Update: August 29, 2005