Become a guest of the living dead in ‘Dracula’s Wedding’

A romantic blood feast arrives at the Fledge Saturday. Enter “Dracula’s Wedding,” an interactive vampire-themed play that rewrites bloodsucker lore and portrays Dracula as a woman.

The plot follows Dracula as she attempts to resurrect Arsal, a lover she lost to death long ago. The audience itself becomes a collective character as wedding guests anxiously watching the ceremony unfold under the threat of interruption by Erik Van Helsing’s roaming gang of vampire hunters. Should the wedding end peacefully, with or without a massacre, it will be followed by “The Ruby Reception,” which features live music and catering.

Geoph Aldora Espen, an artist and writer, developed several centuries’ worth of retooled vampire lore as a backdrop for his personal incarnation of Dracula.

“In our lore, vampires do eat food and they do have sex. They can go out in the daylight, even though it’s very uncomfortable,” Espen explained. “They can’t be killed; they can only be paralyzed or dismembered. The only way to truly kill a vampire is to kill Dracula herself.”

Espen’s script treats “Dracula’s Wedding” as an actual event unfolding around its audience, rather than a play confined to the stage.

“The event unfolds around the audience. They are the wedding guests, so they’re vampires from all clans and corners across the world,” Espen said. “It’s a lot of a vampire tribes getting together, because Dracula is their ringleader.”

Espen and the rest of the “Dracula’s Wedding” crew drew inspiration from an indelible resource for this sort of thing, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

“I’m kind of using ‘Rocky Horror’ as a model for the phenomena and the excitement that people come to the crowd with,” Espen said. “It’s their energy that’s gonna really create the show and close off the circle for us as performers.”

While “Dracula’s Wedding” was originally intended to double as a blood drive for the American Red Cross, changes in how the organization handles mobile drives nixed the plan. Still, Espen guarantees anybody who can prove he or she donated blood in the month of October can attend the soiree free of charge.

And Espen was happy to drop more hints on what might go down at the wedding — egging on potential wedding guests to simply see for themselves.

“Van Helsing, little do we know, has a daughter who may — or may not — be coming after the events of the wedding,” Espen said. “And if Arsal is resurrected, she may be brought back as a human, which could cause some later interpersonal drama between her and Dracula.

But that’s to be reported on in a potential sequel.”

“Dracula’s Wedding” Performance, 9 to 11 p.m.

Reception, 11 p.m. Discounts available for online advance tickets $40 couple $25 single $15 after 11 p.m. Discounts available for online advance tickets