Do you enjoy vampires, 80’s music, a healthy dose of homoeroticism - all with a theatrical flair? Well look no further, for I submit to you Dance of the Vampires.
(More cool pictures at the very bottom)
What is it you may ask? It’s a musical about a vampire who seduces a girl and invites her to his midnight ball - an offer she simply cannot turn down. The whole thing sorta gives Phantom of the Opera vibes, but like, wayyy less creepy (despite it being a literal vampire). I will say now that yes, Tanz der Vampire (the original title of Dance of the Vampires), is in German, but there is a full recording with English subtitles on youtube, so please don’t let that prevent you from watching it. Now if you’re still reading, allow me to elaborate on the 80’s music and homoeroticism that I previously mentioned.
Let’s start with the tragic gay romance, because I’m sure that’s what you want to hear about first. While not a main part of the musical, the main vampire’s son falls in love with - gasp! - the vampire hunter’s apprentice. They dance together, and with stage magic involving a mesh screen and an actor on the other side dressed identically to the apprentice, it appears as though the vampire has no reflection in the “mirror”. Of course, the feeling is not mutual, as the apprentice is only at the castle to rescue the girl, who he is in love with.
Now, onto the 80’s music. Surely you’ve heard of the song Total Eclipse of the Heart, or the singer Meatloaf (even if it was just his role as Eddie in Rocky Horror Picture Show). Well, the man who wrote that song and a majority if not all of Meatloaf’s work, was Jim Steinman, who composed the musical. The soundtrack contains a decent amount of electric guitar, even a bit of synth at parts, and all around just sounds awesome. However, he only had about a month and a half to compose it all, so he reused some stuff he previously wrote, including a couple Meatloaf songs and Total Eclipse of the Heart, a song he originally wrote for a Nosferatu musical that ended up not getting produced. It was actually originally titled “Vampires in Love,” so what better song is there to fill the place of a big love duet between the girl and the Count?
Tanz der Vampire is my favorite musical ever. I’ve loved it ever since Count von Krolock appeared on the screen and first began to sing, and you may love it too. So I implore you. Please do yourself a favor and check it out. I’ll provide a link of a full recording with English subtitles here, but it should also be the first result on youtube when you search “tanz der vampire english subtitles.” (That production also has Drew Sarich as the Count, my personal favorite.) I should add though, do not watch the broadway production because it’s terrible.
If you’re still not sold, I’m not sure what else I could say to convince you, but hopefully you at least found this interesting and learned something new. If you want to know more about Tanz der Vampire or would like to hear about other musicals about vampires, please let me know and I can answer any questions. (If even one person watches it because of this I’ll consider this a success, and if you do watch it please let me know because it would really make my day.)
And now I’ll leave you with some pictures of Tanz der Vampire as a last resort to convince you how awesome it is and that you should watch it. (I also put in the alt text the song each picture is from for anyone interested)
*ooo the set design and costuming have hypnotized you… you want to watch it now… do it for the vampires…*
!!! CALLING ALL GERMAN-LANGUAGE/EUROPEAN MUSICAL FANS !!!
I’ve put together a discord server for people who are fans of German-language musicals like me! Obviously anyone is welcome regardless of the kind of musicals you like, or even if you don’t watch a lot of musicals and just want a place to start
I created it with the intention to hopefully stream musicals so that you can watch them with other people, so if you don’t have anyone to watch them with, this is the place for you!
A server for fans of German-language musicals! Don't have anyone to watch musicals with? Look no further! (Everyone is welcome regardless of
Even if you don’t join, I would really appreciate you sharing this so that others who might want to can, and if you do join, I’ll see you soon!
“Dude, we totally got turned into gingerbread cookies!”
Some Bill and Ted gingerbread cookies that I decorated! (With their matching shoelaces of course)
If you think Ted looks wrong, I know, please just pretend it’s right. I had to individually pick out the yellow and orange from some rainbow sprinkles because that’s all I had for those colors, all for me to mess up the colors on Ted because I didn’t think to look at a reference.
When I realized what I had done I had to eat him right away to hide the evidence of my mistake. Sorry Ted!
Edit: I did eat Bill right after because I just couldn’t separate them
My collection of wormdas drawings from the jcs worm festival on their own (don’t worry, more are coming when I have the time)
The drawings have definitely improved since the first little doodle
(reference photos and some short rambles below the cut)
Ok so you can see that unlike the first two, the final picture is not a still from jcs, but it’s still significant and I’ll tell you why.
They are two characters from Commedia Dell’arte, Pierrot on the left and Columbine (sometimes written as Columbina) on the right. Now, in Commedia Dell’arte Pierrot is known as the sad clown because he loves Columbine, but she always leaves him in the end, choosing Arlecchino (aka Harlequin) over him, thus leaving him pining for his lost love
Sure Jesus didn’t leave Judas for another person, but he did still leave him in the end. I also just really love Pierrot and Judas so it was fun drawing one as the other
I love love love Pierrot and Commedia Dell’arte, so if you’ve read this far, thanks for listening to me yap about them!
