Interview: The Nocturne Resurrects Frankenstein With a Brand-New Musical

The Nocturne Theater in Glendale — arguably LA’s most atmospheric live theater venue — is adding another monster to its repertoire.

FRANKENSTEIN: RESURRECTION, an original musical imagined as a sequel to Mary Shelley’s iconic 1818 horror novel, opens at The Nocturne on September 11. The show was written by Nocturne co-owner Justin Meyer, with music by Seattle-based composer Chris Thomas, who also collaborated with The Nocturne on its annual seasonal musical, Madam Scrooge.

BroadwayWorld sat down with Justin, Chris and Nocturne co-owner Melissa Meyer to talk about the new show, why they chose to tell an entirely new Frankenstein story, and what audiences can expect.

Justin, what made you decide you wanted to write another show? You have so many things happening at the Nocturne already this fall with Dracula, The Eaves, The Soul of New Orleans, and the Haunted Soiree. 

Justin Meyer: I think I have discovered about myself that I'm a writer at heart. I like singing. I like acting. I like all the things. But at the end of the day, I think writing is the thing that just doesn't stop bubbling and boiling in my brain, and that's what comes out. So I'm constantly writing and designing and creating new shows and new show ideas.

How long did it take you to write Frankenstein?

Justin Meyer: I think we decided to pull the trigger on it from a writing perspective last Christmas. Chris and I had kicked around Frankenstein probably even prior to that, like summer or something, because we knew we wanted to do another show together after Madam Scrooge, and we pitched a couple of concepts. Then Frankenstein was the one that settled between the two of us that we really liked. I started drafting story concepts and things like that probably around December. Honestly, we didn't finish the final working draft that we're doing right now until, what, Chris, a couple weeks ago?

Chris Thomas: Yeah. And it's not like that's uncommon, especially for the first run of a show. It's not like we just did Madam Scrooge year one and just didn't touch it. It's always evolving a little bit, and so this may evolve more after this point. We just won't know how.

Did you choose Frankenstein because of the success of Dracula?  

Melissa Meyer: I think I had a little bit of input on that part of it because I was doing research, and we were seeing that the classic monsters were becoming really popular.  When we launched Dracula, I put it at the end of the season of our second season, thinking that we were going to need to continue to build up our database as much as possible because it was such an obscure musical and didn't have a great amount of success on Broadway. So I put it at the end because I didn't think it would do well, and it was our top seller for 2025. I was like, why is it doing so well?

The common IP is very, very helpful, but mostly there's a resurgence of the classic monsters. So Dracula and then Frankenstein and The Mummy and all of them really came to mind. And that's when Justin was like, "Yeah, let's do Frankenstein."

Justin Meyer: Oddly enough, we decided Frankenstein, and it was probably a month later that the Guillermo Del Toro movie was announced. And we're like, "Well, we're on the right path there somewhere."

Chris, tell me about the musical style of Frankenstein. How is it different from or similar to some of the other shows The Nocturne has done?

Chris Thomas: I remember one of our conversations some time ago with Justin. We were like, "Okay, well, we did Madam Scrooge: Christmas Carols is a redemption story. What if we do one where everyone makes tragic choices, and it doesn't work out for the best in the end? Let's just go the other way."

With Madam Scrooge, I was aiming for big Christmas anthems that sounded like they could have come from a hymnal or have been around for a long time already. This time it's like, okay, what's the opposite of that? Justin was like, "Well, you're a film person. You can do the big cinema crashing movie-trailer sounds, just that epic thing. What if we put Queen meets movie trailers and just go for big rock power cinema sounds?"

It took me a minute to soak that in. But after a little reflection, I was like, "Oh yeah, that'll be fun." We went from "Jingle Bells" to slamming drums and big bassy riffs and just going for raw power and sound on this one. So it'll be Madam Scrooge's opposite.

If you had to compare it to another musical sound-wise, what would you compare it to?

Chris Thomas: I don't know one that uses these sounds. I think that was the beauty of your suggestion, Justin. No one's really paired these together yet.

Justin Meyer: It's not Jesus Christ Superstar. It doesn't thrive on the rock part. It kind of thrives more in this cinematic universe. I think we've been saying that it sort of sounds like an epic movie scored by musical theater.

OK, so I know the iconic figure of Frankenstein, but I don't know the story. Did you take the classic story and do it your way, or did you make up a whole story as well?

Justin Meyer: This was a big conversation Chris and I had at the beginning stages of this. Are we reinventing Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the novel? Or are we taking those characters from that universe and creating our own storyline? Essentially, this is a sequel to Frankenstein, an imaginative sequel, if you will.

So what's the story?

Justin Meyer: Victor Frankenstein awakens in a secret lab beneath the infamous Paris Morgue, and he's resurrected by a new doctor, Dr. Seraphina. Then Victor is convinced that Seraphina's sister is maybe his lost bride, Elizabeth. And so it starts going into this sort of science, grief, supernatural; all kind of collide. Then the monster, the creature, comes into play from Victor's past and acts as a Virgil to his Dante. It's definitely been influenced heavily by Dante's Inferno.

Is it scary or is it a love story?

Justin Meyer: I would call it a tragedy. It's going to have creatures. It’s going to have gore, but I'd say it's more of a tragic love story. But the love component of it is more about obsession.

But it's not horror? It's not scary?

Justin Meyer: It isn’t not scary. 

Melissa Meyer: I don't think there's anything that Justin can do that isn't just slightly creepy. 

The Nocturne got its start doing horror, and you've done a lot of it, especially around Halloween. Is your goal to evolve into a theater known for horror and creepy shows, or do you still want to incorporate other kinds of musicals?

Melissa Meyer: I want to have both. We always wanted to start with a little bit of a macabre background, and get a younger crowd involved in theater again because everybody says that theater's dying. But more and more, I think this is the time it's not. In the world of AI and being on your computers and social media, I think that theater and getting out and being in an environment with other people and then enjoying something together — it’s actually the perfect time to have this resurgence in theater. So I'm really excited about that.

I like this idea of continuing to move the theater in two different ways: We can have a little bit of a daytime flair or more family-oriented things . . . And then by night, we can turn a little bit and keep those two personalities going

What's your favorite thing about the show?

Chris Thomas: What I like about this one is we're just leaning into the Gothic largeness of the story. We're delivering scale and sound to pair with the visuals of the story, to pair with the gravity of the story. And I just love that it's so different from the last one we did. I try to make sure everything I work on next is the polar opposite of what I was just doing. That's what I appreciate about this. It's the anti-Madam Scrooge.

Justin Meyer: Being able to present something all new and all-original is kind of fun. But also the performers that we've put together for this show. I think this is going to be a powerhouse vocally. All of our performers, all of our singers, are just really, really super strong rock vocalists. They're big-voice vocalists. And with Chris's score coming up underneath us, every time I get another piece of music from him, I'm like, this is just getting better and better every time you hear it, and bigger and bigger.

Tell me about what else the Nocturne Theatre is doing for Halloween. 

Melissa Meyer: It’s going to be a fun, full-packed Halloween. We’ll have Frankenstein on the main stage. We’ll also have the Haunted Soiree, which this year we just announced we’re doing “Haunt-toberfest,” which blends all the traditions of Oktoberfest in a darker, haunted setting. And that will be the immersive show that takes over the entire theater. 

And then we’ll have The Eaves, the horror play. And we’lll be doing The Soul of New Orleans, which is also macabre — it’s a blend of soul and jazz music from New Orleans.  

Justin Meyer: We’re packing the schedule. 

Don't Miss a Los Angeles News Story
Sign up for all the news on the Summer season, discounts & more...

Los Angeles News

Get the latest news, discounts & more