Special Notes
Please be aware that this show uses occasional flashes of light to simulate lightning and the sound effect of gunshots.
All weapons used in the production are made of plastic and cannot cause harm.
There will be one 15-minute intermission between Acts One and Two. Please consume all refreshments in the lobby.
A Note from the Playwright, John Haman
More than 200 years ago, the novel Frankenstein was written by an 18-year-old girl, who unknowingly created the genre of science fiction. The book was so frightening that the young woman published it without using her name. Two years later, in 1820, the world learned that the author was the notorious Mary Shelley, a young woman living her own nightmare.
Mary was the daughter of two famous parents. Her mother, a renowned writer and an early feminist, died as a result of Mary’s birth. As she grew, Mary spent many lonely days at the grave, longingly reading her mother’s works, and even, it is said, bringing lovers to the grave. Her father was an anarchist, hated by society. By the time she was 18, Mary was openly having an affair with a married man—the poet Percy Shelley—having already borne his child and suffered through its death. Her father hated her for the scandal, and for causing, in his mind, the death of his beloved wife.
In the mysteriously overcast summer of 1816, the unwed Mary was vacationing on Lake Geneva with Shelley and an even more famous poet, Lord Byron. The trio read horror stories to each other in the resort to break the monotony. Byron then challenged all of them to write their own horror stories. Mary struggled at first with the idea. But in a terrifying storm, she found the inspiration that would become one of greatest stories ever written: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.
At its deep, mythic core, Frankenstein is the story of two creatures, both abandoned and rejected by their creators: Victor’s famous monster and Mary Shelley herself.
--JH
