Dracula’s Melbourne in the Herald Sun
26th October 2011
Sally Bennett writes about how Dracula's has become what it is today. From the Herald Sun:
ENTERTAINING is in their blood. So it's small wonder the offspring of one of Melbourne's favourite showbiz couples have proved to have staying power in the vampire genre.
Today the Newman crew - children of John Newman and the late Tikki Taylor - celebrate the 30th birthday of their theatre restaurant Dracula's.
In the beginning it was one of Melbourne's more outrageous venues - a punk-like offering in a tiny city rental where the waiters had tattoos and mohawks and the entertainment was dark and edgy.These days, with a staff of 200 across two venues, it's modelled on the European style of cabaret with the same dark-edged vampire theme.
"The bawdy singalong days of theatre restaurants are long gone," creative director Marc Newman says.
"We haven't done that at Dracula's for about 20 years."
The creative team, though, remains the same, with Marc as writer, his sister Haydie as director, brother Paul as the stage/tech whiz, and wife Jayne as costume designer.Tonight they launch the celebratory Sin & Tonic, claiming the mix of cabaret, burlesque, comedy and carnival is their most daring yet.
With a permanent cast of six, the show will run for 12 months before transferring to Dracula's on the Gold Coast.
"We're constantly renewing," Marc says.
"A place that's designed around crazy gimmicks like Dracula's tend to have short lifespan. It's all good and then three or four years later it's gone.
"But we just get bigger and bigger. The show is always very fast-moving."A jazz band plays in the cocktail lounge on arrival and a ghost train takes the audience to the theatre for a three-course meal and two-hour show.
Marc says the public's constant interest in vampire books and movies helped create new audiences at Dracula's.
"Most people don't realise how popular theatre restaurant still is," he says."You get such a variety of entertainment in one show. We have burlesque acts which are really sexy and stylish, puppetry, which is a seldom seen, zombies and crazy novelty acts, and we have acrobatics and comedy."