(Above: Count Dracula, played by Joel Ibáñez, puts his spell on Lucy, played by Melanie Moser, in VLT’s “Dracula;” photos by Richard Scheeland)

By Randi Bjornstad

Just in time for Halloween, the Very Little Theatre is opening its 90th season, with — what could be more appropriate — DRACULA.

This iteration of the story, adapted for the stage in 1996 by Steven Dietz from Bram Stoker’s classic horror novel, has a fairly complicated plot.

Count Dracula apparently needs to leave Transylvania because the blood supply for vampires there has been used up. So he engages a London real estate agent named Jonathan Harker to travel there to consult with him about finding an appropriate property for his needs.

Harker’s fiancée, Mina, remains in London, where she and her best friend, Lucy, share their dreams for the future and confidences about the men who are vying for their hands. Mina is completely devoted to Harker, but Lucy reveals that she has three men who want to marry her.

Then things begin to get strange. Lucy starts having nightmares and sleepwalking episodes. Mina calls one of Lucy’s main suitors, a Dr. John Seward, who works with inmates in a mental asylum, including one named Renfield who babbles that his “master” is going to arrive soon — or may already be — in London.

During one of her outdoor sleepwalking episodes, Lucy encounters none other than Dracula, who indeed has made his way to London. Afterward, she has a strange mark on her neck. When Seward sees it, he contacts one of his old professors, Abraham Van Helsing, who fears that Lucy has been bitten by a vampire and gives her a blood transfusion to try to keep vampiric tendencies from taking over.

About then, Harker finally returns to London from the Carpathian Mountains, he is in a seriously deranged state, due apparently to some horrific experience he has experienced in the company of his client, Count Dracula.

Aimee Hamilton is Mina and Kyle Letsom is Harker in The Very Little Theatre’s production of “Dracula”

He is admitted to Seward’s hospital ward, and while he is there Mina and Van Helsing read his journals and discover his encounters with Dracula.

And that’s just Act One.

Things get really frenetic from there. Dracula gets a bite of just about everybody except Van Helsing, but luckily Mina retains just enough of her human-ness to cooperate in a plot to destroy him.

In the end, Dracula is lured back into his coffin, where Van Helsing drives a stake through his heart — the only way, as everyone knows, to kill a vampire — and the scourge is stopped. Luckily, once a vampire is destroyed, those who have been infected with its “vampirism” are released from its spell.

Van Helsing then urges everyone to be on the lookout for evil and ready to defeat it wherever they see it.

Stanley Coleman directs this complicated story for the VLT. The cast includes Aimee Hamilton as Mina, Melanie Moser as Lucy, Kyle Letsom as Harker, and Robert Williams as Seward.

Joel Ibáñez portrays Dracula, with Adam Leonard taking the role of Van Helsing. Blake Beardsley plays the madman, Renfield.

The cast is rounded out with Demetra Kalams, Livija Jacks, Natalie Tichenor, Sarah Nesslin, Steven Shipman, Thomas Weaver, and Brett Finch.

And, appropriately, VLT has arranged for the bloodmobile from Northwest Bloodworks a few blocks away, to come to the theater from 3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 9 and 10 to accept blood donations from the community.

Blood donors will receive a $4 voucher toward a ticket purchase at VLT during the 2018-19 season. To sign up to donate, call the blood center at 800-398-7888 or go online to https://bit.ly/2SjEwi2

Dracula

When: 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 26-27 and Nov. 1-3 and 8-10, with 2 p.m. matinees on Oct. 28 and Nov. 4; an opening gala follows the Oct. 26 performance

Where: 2350 Hilyard St., Eugene

Tickets: $21 for adults, $17 for students and senior citizens and for all Thursday performances; available at the box office, 541-344-7751, from 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday or online at TheVLT.com

Detail: This show is rated PG-13 because of mature themes and stage blood