Although Vanessa Severo fell in love with theater as a teen living in Germany, she’s called Kansas City home for more than 20 years and is fully immersed in the city’s theater scene. The Southeast Missouri State University graduate is well-versed in the world of theater and has worked as a choreographer, writer, actor and director. Severo is probably best known for Frida…A Self Portrait, which she wrote and performed with her longtime collaborator and creative partner, Joanie Schultz, as director.
This October, Severo and Schultz teamed up again to perform their retelling of Dracula, examining the role of women in Bram Stoker’s classic. Produced by KCRep, the play looks at the secrets we all keep and recasts the original male lead, Van Helsing (played by Severo), as a woman who is thirsting for knowledge in the male-dominated 1900s and forced to hide her gender. Their adaptation was well-received at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park last winter and is sure to be a perfectly chilling Halloween experience.
How did you choose KC as your base of operations? I didn’t plan on staying here. I came originally to help out my mother, but there was a huge theater scene, so I started working. There was a lot of gritty theater happening at the time, very Chicago-like. The Fishtank Theatre was doing plays in the window. The Living Room was booming, and the Kansas City Actors Theatre was doing these classics. There was a broad spectrum, and I just kept working. I met my husband and I got this house, and now I have a 13-year old daughter. So it’s just good. It’s a small town with big-city ideas, and I like that.
Joanie Schultz is the co-director of Dracula with you, and you have done a lot of work together. How did you two decide on Dracula? Joanie was my director for Frida, and she was the associate artistic director at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. We were talking to the artistic director, Blake Robeson, about shows for the next season. The idea of Dracula came up and he said, “I don’t want to put on a Dracula because the adaptations are just so old right now.” And then I got really bold and I said: “I’ll write one. I’ll print you a Dracula.” Joanie and I collaborate so beautifully together. We were like, “Let’s take on Dracula,” you know? Blake greenlit it and we did it. We went to a writer’s retreat in Colorado and started talking. What if we go through the female point of view and what it’s like for these women to experience the world of Dracula? And then it just took a whole different shift because we were looking through a different lens. We finished Dracula and performed it at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park this January and February, which I was like, is that even going to sell? And it sure as heck did. Like, people showed up in capes.
How do you think a live theater performance is different from watching a movie? I think that when you go to see something live, you’re actually having a conversation. [You’re having an] experience and catharsis together, which I don’t think you get from a screen. There is something real about sharing energy in a space and to see how other people are reacting to something that is either moving or funny or even triggering. It gives us an awareness of where we are in our society and in our culture, and I think by looking at a screen you don’t fully get that.
Theater is a big collaboration. What do you get out of creating an experience for an audience with such a multifaceted group of people? I don’t think anything can be created by one person alone. It’s always a collaborative effort. All those people together lift the ideas higher than one person could. Everybody has each other’s back, so there’s this wonderful excitement that if something does go awry, somebody else covers and it’s just like, good save. It’s truly a team effort.
GO: Dracula. October 14–November 2. Times vary. Copaken Stage.
