The myth, the legend, the icon Cynthia Erivo will return to the West End in February 2026 in Kip Williams’ adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 infamous gothic horror Dracula.
The production will run from 4 February to 30 May 2026 at the Noël Coward Theatre in London. Emmy, Grammy and Tony winner – and three-time Oscar nominee – Erivo will play all 23 roles, from Dracula to Van Helsing. The actress has established herself as a huge name both onstage and off with her roles in the Broadway production of The Color Purple (2015-2017), the 2019 film Harriet, and, most recently, the titular role in Jesus Christ Superstar at the Hollywood Bowl in August of this year. She has also now become a household name after starring in Jon M. Chu’s two-part Wicked film adaptation. The 2024 film received 10 Academy Award nominations – including Erivo’s nomination for Best Actress – and became the fifth highest-grossing film of the year.
Director Kip Williams is also highly qualified for this reimagination of Dracula, being an established writer and director of theatre and opera. Williams is no stranger to one-woman adaptations of gothic horror classics, having directed both the original Sydney Theatre Company production of The Picture of Dorian Gray and the later West End transfer starring Emmy and Tony Award winner Sarah Snook in 2024. This production will be in the skilled hands of a director and writer familiar with the psychologically complex landscape of gothic horror adaptations. With this upcoming production being a transfer from the Sydney Theatre Company’s 2024 production of Dracula – also directed by Kip Williams, starring Zahra Newman – we already have an idea of how the 2026 production will work. We know that Williams’ innovative use of cine-theatre will be a key aspect of the show, a signature creative decision which The Guardian credited as “clever and playful.”
Dracula, even from its initial release in 1897, highlights society’s ingrained fear of the ‘other’ – that which is unknown and unknowable. Since its earliest stage adaptations, iterations have evolved to reflect shifts in both artistic styles and cultural anxieties. In the 1920s, productions leaned heavily into melodrama and expressionism to reflect a bold and polarised sense of morality, highlighting binary distinctions between good and evil. As the understanding of psychology developed after World War II, theatrical productions turned to methods of realism and naturalism, influenced by Freud’s theories of psychosexuality and Stanislavski’s performance techniques. Dracula moved away from purely a tale of external horror into a study of repression and human desire. Contemporary directors and playwrights – such as Kip Williams and Kate Hamill – take this further in using Dracula to dissect and interrogate society’s assumptions around gender, colonialism and queerness. The vampire myth continues to evolve to mirror each era’s artistic language and social preoccupations.
The story seems to be just as relevant in today’s globalised, digital, and polarised cultural landscape as it was in Bram Stoker’s time of anxieties around scientific development and social change. This production will, no doubt, be just as ground-breaking and thought-provoking as both Cynthia Erivo and Kip Williams’ past projects.
Photo by Cederic Vandenberghe on Unsplash