By Jennifer Brookland
jenn.brookland@gazettedev.gazette.com

In 1897, as Bram Stoker was publishing his novel “Dracula,” Cripple Creek was remodeling the Butte Opera House after devastating fires that wiped out most of the town. As the city bounced back and gold mining boomed, something else was taking the town by storm: melodrama, productions of which featured elaborate sets and dastardly villains, vamps and heroines a crowd could boo and cheer for.

Melodramas were immensely popular in mining towns such as Cripple Creek and across the U.S., and although the genre gave way to more realistic and morally complex forms, it enjoyed a long and boisterous revival in the West and continues to thrive at the Butte Theater. This spooky season, audiences are invited to travel back in time to that Wild West saloon town of the 1890s, where playwright Chris Sorensen has set his version of Dracula: “The Vampire of Cripple Creek.”

Actor Samantha Ferrante calls the show “a crazy cowboy adventure,” loosely hung on the framework of Stoker’s novel but firmly rooted in the Wild West. In this melodramatic reimagining of the classic, Dracula, Van Helsing, and Mina’s antics invite audiences to laugh, shout and stick around for a wacky and raucous song and dance bonus show.

While melodrama was a predominant theater type back when frontiersmen and fortune seekers were mining for gold, it’s rarely found today. Back then, the simplistic messages, archetypal characters and clear-cut winners and losers offered motifs an energetic and not-always-literate crowd could enjoy to the fullest.

“Basically the whole idea is that the villain is trying to ruin things and the hero always kind of comes out on top,” said Butte Theater manager Lauren Smith. “It is something that is truly a fabric of our theatrical history in this country, and so we love that we get to be one of the few theaters in the country still preserving it.”

It’s also pretty over-the-top, with big actions and bigger reactions meant to elicit responses from the audience. At the Butte Theater, that kind of interaction is an imperative piece of the fun.

”I’m drawn to wacky, crazy comedies – the wackier, the better,” said director Paula Makar. “So melodrama is a lot of fun. You can really be creative … And when you have actors who are fearless, it’s just an amazing combination.”

“The Vampire of Cripple Creek” will be Ferrante’s first melodrama. She said she’s excited to welcome that kind of participation from the crowd — especially a crowd that’s getting all the jokes and references of a play based in their hometown.

“It’s so campy and fun, and it’s different than anything I’ve ever done,” said Ferrante, who typically deploys much more rigid acting techniques.

Not this time. When Act Two ends, Ferrante shifts characters from the gender-swapped Dr. Seward of Stoker’s novel and becomes Elvira for the show’s olio. What was traditionally an entr’acte used to entertain and distract audiences while stagehands moved set pieces around and the actors changed costumes is now a Halloween-themed coda to the play.

Songs include “Ghouls just wanna have fun” and “Don’t Fear (the Reaper).” “It is essentially a silly parody cabaret with a little bit of a plot,” said Ferrante.

“I have found myself laughing to the point of tears at least three times in this first week of rehearsal,” she said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun.”