Nosedive Productions' The Little One

Growing out of my recent Crystal Skillman interview, I learned about playwright James Comtois‘ upcoming production of The Little One (opening June 18 [after a June 17 preview] and running through to July 10 at New York/East Village’s Kraine Theater [85 East 4th Street). As described at the Nosedive Production site:  “Cynthia, a fledgling vampire, is taken under the wing of a more venerable one, Marie. Marie tries to teach Cynthia how to hunt, be merciful towards humans and make the most out of immortality. However, like all rebellious children, Cynthia intends to carve out her own path.” My thanks to Comtois for talking to me about the play in this email interview, as well as discussing the 10th anniversary of the theater company (a company with the motto of “Theatre for Sick Little Monkeys”) that he co-founded.

Tim O’Shea: Vampires are a frequently explored theme in movies, plays, novels and music–how did you decide to approach the subject in a way that makes it stand out from the current Twilight-happy trend (Given that as you noted several months back:  “My goal was (is) to make the main characters interesting, sympathetic and (in their own way) likable, but periodically remind the readers/viewers that if they were to hypothetically meet any of these characters, they’d be running for their lives, crying and screaming.”)

James Comtois: Well, making The Little One different from Twilight was pretty easy, since not only am I not very familiar with the Twilight franchise, but from what I hear, I’m not very interested in changing that. My interest level in exploring the vampire as a metaphor for unrequited young love or abstinence is at about zero.

In a lot of ways, the vampires in The Little One are very traditional. They drink blood. They stink of death. Some of them get off on terrorizing humans. They’re the stuff of nightmares.

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