This adaptation of Carmilla reimagines Le Fanu’s 1872 novella through a feminist, queer, and postcolonial lens, centering the story on the complex and dangerous relationship between Carmilla and Laura. In this version, Laura is not a passive heroine; she is ambitious, cunning, and capable of cruelty. Carmilla, meanwhile, is both predatory and vulnerable, shaped by centuries of survival and the lingering trauma of the 17th century witch hunts, which disproportionately targeted women who did not submit to patriarchal expectations. The play foregrounds how Laura and Carmilla’s desires and deceptions intersect, and how the prey ultimately becomes the predator.

The narrative employs an unreliable narrator device, and the actors who play Laura and Carmilla swap roles for each performance. This structure allows the repeat audiences to experience the story from multiple, opposing perspectives: one performance may feel like a romantic tragedy, while another may feel like a supervillain origin story, depending on which actors play which characters. Carmilla forces Laura to confront the dual feelings of attraction and repulsion that often accompany the queer coming-of-age, whether in the 19th century or today.

Our dramaturgy emphasizes multi-layered, naturalistic ensemble action: characters pursue individual objectives that intersect and conflict with others, resulting in interruptions, hesitations, and mid-line shifts that reveal thought, emotion, and power dynamics. We also employ Brechtian doubling to highlight contrasts and thematic echoes, as each actor takes on multiple complementary roles across the narrative. We have pared back the dramatis personae to the most essential characters not only to convey the plot, but to embody themes of logic versus faith, status and power, and freedom/risk versus repression/safety.