presents
MINA
Starring Reilly Hacker as Mina
Adapted by Richard Width
from
Bram Stoker’s
DRACULA
Directed by Karen Eterovich
Assistant to the Director/Sound Design
Thomas J. Donohoe II
Time: 1900
Location: A lecture hall at the London Society
A Note from Director Karen Eterovich
When First Flight Ensemble Member Richard Width said he wanted to write a one-woman adaptation of Dracula I immediately reacted with "I'm your girl". It was not just because of my almost 30 years of experience creating and touring my own one-woman shows about Aphra Behn and Jane Austen, but because Richard had such a clear vision for this play. He had seen other Draculas, and none had focused on the woman's point of view. Here was something I, as director, could really get excited about. Subsequently, Richard has been able to use Bram Stoker's language to tell this story in an exciting, inclusive and passionate way. What are we to take away from it? Here, a woman, considered the "weaker sex", determines to fight this evil with every bit of strength and intellect she possesses. You have to admire Mina for taking on this extraordinary task. Right now, in this day and age, we are confronted with monumental "evil" at every turn including but not limited to the War in the Ukraine, the War between Israel and Pakistan, and finally the fact of the many evils we face at home here in the United States. Our corrupt government, the corruption of governments worldwide. And Mina stands up and says "Use your mind, use whatever you have and stand up to it however you can." She inspires us to carry courage into our own lives and to stand up for what we believe in. In this spirit of the times, my collaborators and I would like to offer this play up to inspire courage and hope in a dark time.
WHO’S WHO IN MINA
Reilly Hacker (Mina) is a NJ/NYC based actress with a Bachelor's Degree in Theater from Ramapo College with concentrations in Acting, Directing, and Stage Management as well as a minor in Digital Filmmaking. Some of her previous credits include Meg in Little Women, Kathryn Schaub in Radium Girls, Brooke Wyndham in Legally Blonde, Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Agatha in Frankenstein, Officer#2/Musician in Twelfth Night, and Greek Chorus in Antigone. She was also nominated for The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Irene Ryan Acting Award for her role as Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and received a certificate of merit for ensemble work in Twelfth Night. Reilly would like to thank her friends, family, and mentors for their constant love and support and the team of Mina for making this experience a positive one. She hopes the audience enjoys this version of this classic story.
THOMAS J. DONOHOE II (Assistant to the Director/Light & Sound Design) is a NJ/NYC-based stage manager and graduate of Ramapo College of New Jersey with a degree in Directing/Stage Management. Select credits include First Flight Theatre Company: Little Women (PSM), New Studio on Broadway: An Experiment. (PSM), Once More (PSM), Montclair Studio Players: Miracle on 34th Street (PSM/TD), Triad Theatre: Magic Box (PSM/Lighting), Charles Seller Foundation: The Addams Family (PSM/Sound Design), Wolfsmouth Players: Effigy (ASM/Tech), A Very Great Mischief (Tech), Acting Under the Influence: Julius Caesar (Director), Twelfth Night (PSM), The Tank NYC: 20th Anniversary Gala (SM), Autumn Affair (Tech), Modern Swimwear (Tech), Ramapo College: Stop/Kiss (PSM), Baltimore (PSM), The Big Unknown 1.5° (PSM), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (ASM), Antigone (ASM), The Sonic Life of a Giant Tortoise (ASM). Nutley Little Theatre: Hand to God (TD), Tin Cat Shoes (PSM). He currently serves as the first chair of the Nutley Little Theatre Youth Committee, and was a recipient of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Region 2 Award for Stage Management Excellence. Contact at tdonohoe05@gmail. com.
Karen Eterovich (Director) (AEA, SAG-AFTRA, Dramatists Guild, LPTW) with First Flight: Director of A Vampire Kiss in the Plague of 1666 by Dr. James Fitzmaurice, a Zoomie, which won awards in more than 25 film festivals at the height of the pandemic and The Witlings by Fanny Burney which received a favorable review from the British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies and a reading of Mina at the Hermitage Museum in Ho-Ho-Kus in 2022 starring Anna Hamilton Scott. First Flight Acting Credits: Valley Forge (2018 & 2022), Elizabeth the Queen, Masque of Queens, Eve of St. Mark, Dickens by Candlelight: A Christmas Carol, live in 2019 and on Zoom in 2020. New York City Acting Credits include: Hudson Warehouse: Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride & Prejudice, Gertrude in Hamlet, Queen Anne in The Three Musketeers, Miss Prism in The Importance of Being Earnest and HW Valentine Monologue Festival. National & international tours as Aphra Behn in her play, Love Arm’d, including the Bedlam Theatre, Edinburgh, Scotland and the Mission Theatre, Bath, UK. Karen plays Jane Austen in her solo play, Cheer from Chawton, which has toured coast to coast from Stockton, CA to NYC to the Mission Theatre in Bath. Karen was invited to perform three times in Bath, UK, most recently at the 2019 Jane Austen Festival. Karen’s most recent performance as Jane Austen was in New York City at the Women’s History Solo Show Series at the 14th Street Y in 2020 just before all theatres closed. Other directing credits include: Romeo & Juliet and She Stoops to Conquer both at Bergen Community College and Stray Cats by Tom Wolfe with Blue Roses. Thank you to my family, Frank Farrell, Richard Width, Reilly Hacker and Thomas Donohoe. Karen is also the proud archivist for her father, the artist, Anthony Eterovich (1916-2011), and may be found on Instagram @eterovichdaughter and on Twitter @lovearmd. Her website is www.lovearmd.com.
FRANK FARRELL (Producer & Artistic Director of the First Flight Theatre Company) directed and appeared in First Flight’s Shakespeare’s Ladies at Tea and Shakespeare’s Deaths in August as part of FRIGID’s Little Shakespeare Festival. He was an actor in Chicago for 38 years receiving three Joseph Jefferson acting nominations and recently returned to NYC. While in Chicago he directed and produced plays for the Free Shakespeare Theatre Company, Temporary Theatre, Shakespeare’s Herd, Steppenwolf Theater, Raven Theatre, Equity Library Theater Chicago, the North Lakeside Players, Citadel Theatre and Theatre-Hikes. Frank has formed six theater companies along the way including Theatre-Hikes in Chicago and the Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company in Grand Haven, Michigan. In 2018 in NYC, he directed Forgotten Soldiers from Our Forgotten War for the First Flight Theatre Company, the seventh theatre group he formed. For First Flight he also coordinated several stage readings of Maxwell Anderson’s plays in New York City and Chicago. Frank directed and produced last summer’s First Flight productions of Maxwell Anderson’s play Valley Forge and this summer’s production of Little Women. He recently directed three short films and one full length; Walt Kelly’s Songs of the Pogo, The Leaves Were Falling, Salvador and In the Garden of Live Flowers which recently won Best Biopic at the Green Academy Awards Film Festival. He can be currently heard talking and singing as co-host for the Songs of the Pogo Podcast.
Richard Width (Adaptor) (AEA) performed or directed well over 100 mainstage, young company, residency and professional staged reading productions with Orlando Shakespeare Theater (Orlando Shakes) including Andrew Rally in I Hate Hamlet, Valere in Tartuffe, Marc Antony in Julius Caesar, Orlando in As You Like It and Phileas Fogg in the Southeast premier of Around the World in 80 Days. He directed the critically acclaimed mainstage productions of The Winter’s Tale, Measure for Measure, Othello and 2010 production of Hamlet, the first production of the company nationally reviewed by the Wall Street Journal. He adapted Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Forster’s Maurice and Poe’s Pit and the Pendulum for the stage as a part of Orlando Shakes’ new play development program. As a member of Orlando Theatre Project (OTP) he performed Jason Posner in Wit, George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, directed the Central Florida premier of Blackbird and played Mitch Albom in the Southeastern premiere of Tuesdays with Morrie. He has worked in numerous regional theaters including the Texas Shakespeare Festival and appeared nationally on Guiding Light, One Life to Live, and Vin Diesel’s directorial debut film Multi Facial. More recently, he appeared as Henry II in The Lion in Winter with Shakespeare on the Fly, with First Flight Theater Company as Sverre in White Desert, Samuel Pepys in the award winning ‘zoomie’ film A Vampire Kiss in the Plague of 1666, in multiple AK Films web series including Catitude, The Gym, Cosplay, The VonDo Angency, and as ‘Dad’ in the independent short Light. He has directed, taught, and choreographed staged combat in the Central Florida area for 14 years for such institutions as Rollins College, Seminole State College and the University of Central Florida, is a former board member of The Garden Theatre, the founding Education Director for OST where he created all its curriculum for in-school residencies, summer programming and internship training program, a former full-time Fine Arts faculty member at Trinity Preparatory School teaching grades 8-12, has taught with Special Studies branch of Chautauqua Institute in upstate NY, presented workshops for the NJ Juvenile Detention Association on the use of Shakespeare with incarcerated youth to address trauma and holds a BFA in Theater, cum laude, from Boston University. He has also trained with McCarter Theater, The Actor’s Studio and Shakespeare and Company. Currently, he is a former First Flight Theatre board member facilitating the company’s return to live theater post-Covid playing George Washington in Maxwell Anderson’s Valley Forge, adapting Bram Stoker’s Dracula into a one woman show titled Mina and directing the company’s signature production of Dickens by Candlelight: A Christmas Carol while working full time as a Hospice RN in the northern NJ area.
ABRAHAM STOKER (1847 – 1912) was an Irish author who is celebrated for his 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. During his lifetime, he was better known as the personal assistant of actor Sir Henry Irving and business manager of the Lyceum Theatre, which Irving owned. In his early years, Stoker worked as a theatre critic for an Irish newspaper, and wrote stories as well as commentaries. He also enjoyed travelling, particularly to Cruden Bay where he set two of his novels. During another visit to the English coastal town of Whitby, Stoker drew inspiration for writing Dracula. He died on 20 April 1912 due to locomotor ataxia and was cremated in north London. Since his death, his magnum opus Dracula has become one of the most well-known works in English literature, and the novel has been adapted for numerous films, short stories, and plays.
The First Flight Theatre Company is devoted to presenting the plays of 20th century American playwright Maxwell Anderson as well as other playwrights who instill poetry in their writing. For more about First Flight visit www.firstflighttheatreco.com
Email: firstflight2018@gmail.com
OUR GoFundMe DONORS 2023
Elizabeth Weller
Richard Width
Karen Eterovich
Lynn Manuell
Edward Alstrom
Debbie Ruzicka
Harper Craven
Joseph Vetromile
Pamela Coombe
Marilyn Green
Johnny Garcia
John Zerbe THANK YOU!
THANK YOU VERY MUCH: Lynn Manuell, Luba Becker, Diana Gerbehy, John Maguire, Alex Maguire, Stephen Shields, Cullen Douglas, Christine Blalock & The Hermitage team, FRIGID and the Days of the Dead Festival staff, First Flight Ensemble Member Anna Hamilton Scott who originated the role of Mina in 2022, and Brandon Jones the "Voice of Dracula".
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