Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Written by Mary Shelley and Kate McAll

Narrated by Seamus Dever, Adhir Kalyan, Cerris Morgan-Moyer and 3 more

The 1815 eruption of Indonesia’s Tambora volcano had a catastrophic effect on climate around the world. In North America and Europe, the following twelve months became known as “the year without summer.” Confined indoors by the relentless rain and cold, a group of friends, including 18-year old Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and poet Lord Byron, began writing ghost stories to pass the time. Shelley’s tale “Frankenstein” remains, over 200 years later, a work of timeless imagination and power.

Includes a post-play conversation with Leslie S. Klinger, author of The New Annotated Frankenstein.

Original music by John Biddle.

Recorded before a live audience at the UCLA James Bridges Theater in February 2020.

Adapted by Kate McAll
Director: Anna Lyse Erikson
Producing Director: Susan Albert Loewenberg
An L.A. Theatre Works Full-Cast Performance featuring:
Seamus Dever as Captain Walton
Adhir Kalyan as Victor Frankenstein
Stacy Keach as The Creature
Cerris Morgan-Moyer as Elizabeth Lavenza, Justine Moritz
Mike McShane as Mr. Davy, Father, Donald
Darren Richardson as Henry Clerval, Judge, Old Man, Hamish

Associate Artistic Director: Anna Lyse Erikson
Recording Engineer and Sound Designer: Mark Holden for The Invisible Studios, West Hollywood
Senior Radio Producer: Ronn Lipkin
Foley Artist: Brian DeShazor
Production Manager: Erica R. Christensen
Editor and Mixing Engineer: Charles Carroll

• Language: English
• Publisher: L.A. Theatre Works
• Release date: Jul 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781682661109

Mary Shelley

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born on August 30, 1797, into a life of personal tragedy. In 1816, she married the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and that summer traveled with him and a host of other Romantic intellectuals to Geneva. Her greatest achievement was piecing together one of the most terrifying and renowned stories of all time: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Shelley conceived Frankenstein in, according to her, “a waking dream.” This vision was simply of a student kneeling before a corpse brought to life. Yet this tale of a mad creator and his abomination has inspired a multitude of storytellers and artists. She died on February 1, 1851.