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A Vampire Story

Full-Length Play, Drama  /  11w, 6m, 2any gender (adult)

Two young women arrive in a nameless British small-town. Their
names are not their own. They don't declare their ages. Their relationship with
each other is not clear. Are they sisters, as their assumed identities declare?
Or are they mother and daughter?

  • Cast Size
    Cast Size
    11w, 6m, 2any gender (adult)
  • Audience
    Target Audience
    Adult

Details

Summary

The eldest, Claire, takes a job in a pub. The youngest, Eleanor, goes to school. During a truth exercise in her Drama class, Eleanor confesses that she has been alive for over two hundred years and has survived by drinking human blood. Her classmates think she is utterly crazy and Mint, her teacher, puts her in touch with the school counsellor. She makes one friend, Frank, a boy who has been home educated and is as much of an oddity as Eleanor. He tries to get to the bottom of her vampire delusion, thinking it an epic and compelling psychosis. Why would anyone want to be undead? Frank's parents believe that Eleanor is an anorexic - why does she never eat? Eleanor has started to write her life story as a play. She describes Claire's background as a prostitute in 19th century London and her own as a child in a private orphanage. Meanwhile, things are falling apart. People are disappearing. Are Eleanor and Claire vampires? Or are they troubled young women on the run?

In 2012, A Vampire Story was adapted to become the horror film Byzantium.

  • Time Period Contemporary
  • Cautions
    • No Special Cautions

Media

“Despite this Vampire Story is an entertaining and light one hour piece, and something you can definitely sink your teeth into.” – The Tab

Licensing & Materials

  • Minimum Fee: £55 per performance plus VAT when applicable.

Scripts

Available Formats:

Authors

Moira Buffini

Moira Buffini’s plays include Blavatsky’s Tower (Machine Room), Gabriel (Soho Theatre), Silence (Birmingham Rep), Loveplay (Royal Shakespeare Company), Dinner (National Theatre and West End), Dying for It, adapted from The Suicide by Nikolai Erdman (Almeida), A Vampire Story ...
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