MARIE LAVEAU AND THE VAMPIRE
THE MUSICAL
BY ROSARY O’NEILL
CAST OF CHARACTERS
MARIE LAVEAU: Créole Voodoo Priestess. Intense but
sensitive, she seems in her 20s but is much older.
CHRISTIAN: Creole Vampire, elegant but anxious, dressed in
full evening attire, scarf, cape.
FANTÔME: mature Créole Vampire, exquisite but vicious.
ANNIE: blind Creole girl. Dark wireless glasses. Frail, but
determined, she walks with a stick.
CHORUS: 3 plus Furies, the scary, newly dead.
Incantations inspired by Longfellow’s “Evangeline.”
Time
June 15, 1881, four a.m., the death mind of Marie Laveau.
Setting
St Louis Cemetery Number One and other places where the
arts of black magic are practiced in New Orleans.
NOTE: The coffin and other death symbols can be real or
imaginary.
CHORUS enters through the graveyard in death rags rattling
spoons, sticks, pipes.
CHORUS
THIS IS NEW ORLEANS
PRIMEVAL.
WE MURMURING DEAD
AND WE HALF DEAD,
STUFFED INTO WALLS,
1
IN GARMENTS GREEN,
CALL FOR
THE SUCKING OF BLOOD
FRIENDS WE SOUGHT
AND HOMES;
THEN
DESPAIRING,
HEART-BROKEN,
ASKED OF EARTH
BUT A GRAVE,
LOUD AND BLOATED,
WE CALL
WE ACHING OF HEART
WITH LIFELESS HEADS
THROUGH BROKEN VAULTS
THROUGH CHINKS
IN A RUIN.
CALL FOR
THE SUCKING OF BLOOD.
YE WHO BELIEVE IN DEATH
YE WHO BELIEVE IN
TREACHERY,
COME WITH YOUR
POINTED TEETH
TO BITE
AND KILL MARIE LAVEAU
(NEW VAMPIRE CHRISTIAN emerges from the shadows.)
CHORUS
(Angry)
Christian is that you?
CHRISTIAN
(Terrified)
Y-e-e-e-ES.
CHORUS
(Angry)
DON’T BE AFRAID.
YOU’RE NOT ALONE.
WE’RE HERE.
2
WE’RE WATCHING YOU.
MARIE IS HAPPY.
BEYOND HAPPY IN THAT COMA.
IN HER CASKET. TAKE HER.
(CHRISTIAN tiptoes to the casket.)
CHRISTIAN
(Scared)
Ohhh, I feel energy. Lightness, a presence, a peace.
CHORUS
(Nasty)
MARIE WILL DIE WITH A SMILE
ON HER FACE;
IT DOESN'T GET
BETTER THAN THAT.
DO IT NOW
YOU MAY NOT
HAVE TOMORROW
CHRISTIAN
BUT MARIE LAVEAU. THE VOODOO QUEEN? I can’t
kill a
priest
on my first time out.
CHORUS
YOUR POTENTIAL IS LARGER
THAN YOU KNOW.
PEOPLE THINK
SHE’S DEAD ALREADY.
IF YOU DON’T
KILL HER,
SOMEONE ELSE
WILL GET THE POWER
OF THAT PRIEST’S BLOOD.
A VAMPIRE CAN LIVE OFF
THAT FOR CENTURIES.
“AND DEATH ONCE DONE
THERE’S NO MORE DYING THEN.”
(HIS WIFE, FANTÔME, QUEEN OF THE VAMPIRES enters.)
CHRISTIAN
(Defiant)
3
I don’t want to be a vampire, if I’ve got to drain a
priest.
FANTÔME
(Consoling)
But she’s almost dead anyway. You can’t keep catching rats.
To finish the transition, you must consume
11 pints of a
priest’s blood. It’s thrice as thick.
CHRISTIAN
And if I don’t?
FANTÔME
You’ll putrefy.—
CHRISTIAN
But some say Marie’s a saint. She crowned herself queen of
that voodoo cult. Saved prisoners, healed the dying,
ministered to thousands. I’m not strong enough to defy her.
I’ll be shaken from earth, hurled into hell. //
FANTÔME
Fine. Kill her in stages. Here’s the instruction book.
CHORUS (V.O.)
STAGES, STAGES OF KILLING
(FANTÔME hands him a book, marked “Stages of Killing,”
exits.)
(MARIE LAVEAU—rings a bell atop her casket to show
she’s alive. CHRISTIAN cracks the lid, backs off. The lid
blows open. MARIE’S arms lift up)
MARIE
(Terrified) Oh, no. My arms are floating up, and I’m I’m
I’m rising out my body. STOP. I don’t want to go toward
that moon. I want to stay in New Orleans, a colored girl
you hear.
CHORUS
Come, Marie!
MARIE
4
Whoever you are. Release me and I‘ll give you whatever
potions you want.
CHORUS
Too late.
MARIE
Oh no. (Looking down, scared) I’m in a burial gown (Peering
about) in St. Louis Cemetery no 1. My husband’s mausoleum
holding 7 of my children. I want to see them (Wailing) I
WANT TO SEE THEM BUT I CAN’T GO YET.
(Tolling of bells.)
CHORUS (V.O.)
Hurry. An above ground funeral is about to begin.
MARIE
(Freaking out) I’m not dead! Anybody?
CHRISTIAN
(Quietly approaching her) Hel-lo
MARIE
(Horrified) Who are you?
CHRISTIAN
(Uneasy) Some say I’m an evil spirit.
Others, I’m part of
God.
MARIE
A vampire?
CHRISTIAN
I’m dead but I’m still thinking.
MARIE
Why are you reading from that book?
CHRISTIAN
Everything is programmed in the after life.
MARIE
I curse you and command you to leave in the name of //
5
