4 physical theatre actors
4 classically trained musicians
1 opera diva

Theatre. Film. Live Music.

Red Leap adapts Carmilla, the feverish gothic classic.

Red Leap Theatre’s Artistic Director Ella Becroft collaborates with award winning composer Claire Cowan and filmmaker Claire van Beek to create a physical theatre/film/musical adaption of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s wild novella, Carmilla.

Written in 1872, Carmilla is one of the earliest known works of vampire literature, predating Bram Stoker’s Dracula by 25 years. A classic of early sapphic literature, Le Fanu explores themes of identity, sexuality, vanity, and the moral decay behind wealth and status.

Centred on a feverish friendship between two young women, the retelling of this sapphic love story offers the opportunity to rework the gothic through a distinctly queer lens. Carmilla is effectively the antithesis of both a male-centred world and what later became a male-centric genre.