Denver Center production serves up non-stop laughs in a 90-minute comic blitz.

Settling in for a long run at the Denver Center’s Garner Galleria Theatre, Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors is a batshit, 90-minute laugh fest — and the best thing produced in this space in recent memory. It features a powerhouse Colorado cast and a clever, campy script that throws everything and the kitchen sink of Drac-culture to keep the audience in stitches start to finish.

Working off the bones of the original, this 2023 Dracula hits the ground running with a mashup that conjures everything from classic melodrama and Rocky Horror to Monty Python, Young Frankenstein and even a bit of Austin Powers. You may lose a few brain cells along the way, but for a super-funny 90 minutes at the theatre, this one’s tough to beat.

The small cast is comprised of some well-known local actors, including Leslie O’Carroll, Sean Scrutchins and the husband-wife duo of Adriane Leigh Robinson and Marco Alberto Robinson. The fifth cast member, Zach Kononov, hails from Denver and has appeared in a number of national tours and regional theatre productions. Under Director Gordon Greenberg (who also co-wrote the script), they form a tight, highly effective comedic ensemble you can’t help but fall instantly in love with.

Marco Alberto Robinson as Dracula arrives with pastries to a party. He later insists on getting his cake holder back. | Photo: Amanda Tipton Photography

One sexy Drac

Marco Robinson is the only cast member to play just one character, Dracula, and he delivers a hilarious take on the count that’s as horny as it is bloodthirsty. The role is written for a sexy guy, and the ultra-ripped Marco fits the bill to a T — emerging like Elvis from a backlit panel upstage clad in tight leather pants and a wisp of a shirt he soon doffs.

Typically, characters with rippling biceps and chiseled abs are serious dudes — martial artists, superheroes, weightlifters — but here Marco puts his body up for ridicule. We might appreciate the years of working out it took for the actor to look like this, but as Dracula, he’s just absurd — a preening peacock so over the top that he can’t be taken seriously for a single second.

His antithesis is the ultra-nerdy solicitor Harker, who comes to Dracula’s castle to arrange the purchase of a home in London. This is Sean Scrutchins, one of Colorado’s most physical and versatile actors who’s been lighting up the Colorado Shakespeare Festival stage (and others) the past few years. Here, he’s a sniveling coward soon in thrall to Dracula in more ways than one.

Scrutchins takes this cliché of a character and elevates it with a structured mix of nasal intonations, uptight body language and line delivery that teases mirth from every word. The actor also appears in a few inspired Austin Powers-style interstitials that come and go in a flash.

Adriane Robinson primarily plays Lucy, who’s engaged to Harker but is being seriously wooed by Dracula. (Don’t get too hung up on the divergence from the original, where Mina is Harker’s fiancée — lots of roles are conflated.) She also morphs occasionally into one of Dracula’s house slaves with a cockney accent that’d put Eliza Dolittle to shame.

Lucy starts out as perhaps the lone adult in the room, but before long she’s swept along by the ridiculous story and has a tough time resisting Dracula’s overtures. Their heated scenes are steamy hilarity, as Dracula veers between libidinous lothario and an animal wanting to take a bite out of her.

Sean Scrutchins and Leslie O’Carroll play a couple of old salts (and many other roles) in ‘Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors.’ | Photo: Amanda Tipton Photography

The O’Carroll Factor

As she always does, Leslie O’Carroll brings an actor’s trunkful of comic gifts to the goings-on, playing everything from a salty ship’s captain to the scientist Dr. Westfeldt to Westfeldt’s patient — the bug-chomping lunatic Renfield. Portraying the two compels O’Carroll to do quick changes that sometimes occur in seconds — several of which elicited awed applause.

O’Carroll is the type of comic actor who inhabits every character with utter seriousness and commitment. She’s not likely to break, and that dedication is what makes her so effective to the point where her very appearance on stage tees up the audience’s laugh reflex. And while she’s an equally gifted dramatic actor, Dracula is the perfect showcase for O’Carroll’s comic chops that fit in perfectly with this material and the rest of the cast.

While less familiar on Colorado stages, Kononov is a welcome addition to the cast. No super-campy show would be complete without a bit of drag, and he spends much of the show as a daffy, suitor-starved Mina. With an enormous red wig and a dress that looks like it was made of parlor curtains, Kononov vamps, swoons and giggles his way through each scene with all manner of asides to the audience. He also plays the vampire hunter Van Helsing in several other very funny scenes.

Zach Kononov spends much of the show in drag. | Photo: Amanda Tipton Photography

High-end stagecraft

This production is elevated tremendously by tech and stagecraft that combines the original N.Y. creative team with DCPA’s in-house crew. The original music and sound design by Victoria Deiorio features a richly layered series of cues ranging from mysterious whooshes to creaking doors and more. Props also to DCPA’s Alex Billman (and whoever was running the board) for precise timing of the cues even as events run at breakneck speed.

Tijana Bjelajac’s set design is the kind of highly functional setup you need for lots of quick exits and entrances, but it also includes some clever elements like faux doors that light up, Vegas-style backdrops and even a lit sign on the side of the house with the show’s title.

She also designed the puppets used by Scrutchins in a party scene where Harker is joined by two other guests. One is a British fop in a bowler, the other a loud-mouthed Scot. Both are commenting on the activity with Scrutchins in the middle voicing them all. It’s a skilled performance and another fun little trick that just adds to the many layers of the show.

DCPA Lighting Designer Charles R. MacLeod skillfully mixes the shades of grays and blacks you need for any gothic horror story with brighter purples and reds and even some bright whites to bring to life this particularly campy show.

Finally, Tristan Raines’ costume designs are fantastic, particularly for Dracula and Lucy. When he shows up for the engagement party for Harker and Lucy, he’s sporting a flowing blue ensemble that’d make Liberace blush. Lucy’s period dresses are beautiful, elaborate affairs with a switch element allowing her to shift into the house slave on a dime.

While oftentimes the best comedies can be done with a simple set, Dracula makes a compelling case for pulling out the stops to augment the acting with high production values. DCPA Cabaret has at times struggled to find the ideal shows for long runs in this space, but Dracula is a perfect fit to go the distance all the way into May of next year.

It’s not an exaggeration to say your face will hurt a bit from laughing by show’s end, and it’s also a great opportunity to see a high-caliber cast of Colorado actors having the time of their lives on stage. Don’t miss it.