SHUT UP I’M A VAMPIRE

by Jessica Stanley.

Directed by Bronte Charlotte.

The Butterfly Club. October 10th - 16th 2022.

Green Room Award nominee for Best Sound Design & Composition by James Cerché

“★★★★…Shut Up I’m a Vampire is an intelligent and powerful show by a remarkable artist… Stanley’s script is intelligent and emotive and she performs the hour-long monologue with great artistic skill. The prose is highly descriptive and moving. She succeeds bringing the audience along in every excruciating detail.”

- ArtsHub

“Stanley is a great storyteller, and her use of highly descriptive language consistently paints vivid pictures…Stanley has taken a heavy topic and moulded it in a way that almost doesn't take itself too seriously while displaying tremendous care and compassion as to how she presents it”

- My Melbourne Arts

“The music was phenomenal...it provided an aural atmosphere to experience this story in...I love watching Jessica do anything, her voice is so beautiful...she got me in immediately.”

- Praise Dionysus!

SYNOPSIS.

Sophie's just been bitten by a vampire.
Sophie wants to tell you all about it.
Sophie can't quite remember any of the details, though...

Come on a horror-filled journey in this one-woman show as the victim of one bloody bad night rehashes her version of the story for you. Featuring live sound accompaniment by James Cerché, the Spinning Plates Co. duo (You Are The Blood, Meat Market 2019; JSMR, Melbourne Fringe 2021) is back with more intimate, chilling and quirky material that explores the ways in which our mind is willing to bend the truth to keep us safe.

Shut Up I'm a Vampire is the new solo show created by Jessica Stanley, Melbourne Fringe 2021's Art Unbound Award Winner (JSMR: an ASMR & Storytelling Experience) and Howard Fine Online Performance Project 2021's Best Actor Winner (Jafar). This will be Stanley's fourth solo performance for Melbourne Fringe, following turns in Ménage (Best Performance Nominee, 2016), Ross & Rachel (2018), JSMR (Award Winner, 2021), and the ensemble piece Quite Drunk, Very Jesus-y (2019).

DATES.

OCTOBER 10 - 16th | The Butterfly Club | 5:30pm

CREATIVES.

Written & Performed by Jessica Stanley

With Original Sound & Additional Performance by James Cerché

Directed by Bronte Charlotte

Lighting Design & Tech by Liv McKenna

Produced by Spinning Plates Co. & Anthea Greco

Presented by The Butterfly Club

Presented as part of Fine at Fringe and sponsored by the Howard Fine Acting Studio.

CONTENT WARNING

Shut Up I’m a Vampire contains potentially triggering content or themes, including coarse language, references to mental health, sexual assault, simulated blood and mentioning of the film Morbius. This event also contains small amounts of flashing lights, and sudden and sustained loud noises (but not too loud). If you need to leave at any time, please feel comfortable doing so.

We would also like to acknowledge that all content discussed and performed in the show has been safely processed by our performers.

Psst! If you’re a tad nervous about the simulated blood, don’t worry! It’s not gory and it won’t splash. Promise.

REVIEWS.

“★★★★…an hour-long hypnotising, poetic, rhythmic monologue… Stanley’s script is intelligent and emotive and she performs the hour-long monologue with great artistic skill. The prose is highly descriptive and moving. She succeeds bringing the audience along in every excruciating detail. At times it is reminiscent of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character in Fleabag in the ways she attempts to mask her trauma with avoidance and dry humour. James Cerché provides the soundtrack with guitar, drum machine and vocal sounds. From improvised strumming and plucking, to blues riffs and dull thudding drumbeats, he creates tension and dramatic effect…Shut Up I’m a Vampire is an intelligent and powerful show by a remarkable artist.”

- ArtsHub. Read the full review here.

“Stanley is a great storyteller, and her use of highly descriptive language consistently paints vivid pictures of Sophie’s feelings and her changing environment. The humour and rhyming she intermittently injects into the script without it being intentionally funny is quite skillful and as you listen out for more of it, you simultaneously get drawn into the plot…Live sound accompaniment by James Cerché supports the mood shifts…and in ramping up the tension, confusion and urgency as the story progresses… Stanley has taken a heavy topic and moulded it in a way that almost doesn't take itself too seriously while displaying tremendous care and compassion as to how she presents it.”

- My Melbourne Arts. Read the full review here.

“The music was phenomenal...it provided an aural atmosphere to experience this story in...I love watching Jessica do anything, her voice is so beautiful...she got me in immediately...a show like this, it requires the performer to paint every detail of the story they want to tell, and that feels like such an impressive task to even undertake, let alone succeed at, which I think Jessica and James really accomplished.”

- Praise Dionysus! Listen to the podcast episode here.

GALLERY.

Images by Sarah Clarke.