Act I
Jonathan Harker, a young English solicitor, travels to Transylvania to finalize a real estate transaction with the reclusive and elderly Count Dracula, who intends to purchase property in London ("Prologue"). Upon his arrival, Harker is welcomed with an elaborate supper. During their conversation, Dracula speaks wistfully of his desire to abandon his isolation and begin a new existence in a foreign land (“Solitary Man”).
Dracula escorts Harker to his chamber, where he notices a portrait of Harker's fiancée, Mina Murray, provoking a powerful reaction. After Dracula departs, Harker and Mina, from different locations, reflect on the circumstances of their first meeting (“Whitby Bay”). In England, Mina suddenly hears Dracula’s voice in her mind. He ominously announces his imminent journey and expresses his longing to be with her.
Early one morning, Dracula startles Harker while shaving, causing him to cut himself. Drawn to the sight of blood, Dracula approaches but recoils when he notices the crucifix around Harker's neck. Harker attempts to redirect the Count’s attention to their legal business, but Dracula dismisses the matter and warns him to sleep only in his assigned chamber. As Harker’s stay continues, the castle becomes increasingly nightmarish, and he desperately searches for an escape (“Jonathan’s Bedroom”).
While wandering the castle, Harker encounters Dracula’s Brides, who attempt to seduce him. He willingly removes his crucifix, and the women prepare to drink his blood (“Forever Young”). Dracula intervenes, rebuking them for disobeying his command to leave Harker to him alone. When the Brides protest, Dracula appeases them by giving them an infant to consume. Dracula then feeds on Harker to restore his own youth (“Fresh Blood”). Fully rejuvenated, Dracula ascends into the air, while Harker narrowly escapes and eventually reaches Budapest.
Telepathically, Dracula contacts his devoted servant Renfield, who is confined to Dr. Jack Seward’s psychiatric asylum. Promising him eternal life, Dracula secures Renfield’s loyalty. Renfield envisions the Count’s arrival in Whitby Bay aboard the ship Demeter and witnesses Dracula’s slaughter of the vessel’s captain and crew (“The Master’s Song”).
After learning of the maritime disaster, Mina discusses the news with her friend Lucy Westenra, who also confides her struggles with sleepwalking—an affliction inherited from her late father. Their conversation turns to Lucy’s predicament of having received three marriage proposals in a single day. That evening, all three suitors attend tea: Quincey Morris, a bold American adventurer; Dr. Jack Seward, the intelligent asylum director; and Arthur Holmwood, Lucy’s well-mannered childhood companion. Lucy ultimately accepts Holmwood’s proposal (“How Do You Choose?”).
Later that night, Mina discovers Dracula feeding upon a sleepwalking Lucy. Speaking directly into Mina’s mind, Dracula reveals that Mina was his true desire, but Lucy had answered his call instead. Mina begs him to spare her friend. Dracula agrees, but only if Mina will come away with him, an offer she resolutely refuses. Furious and shaken by Mina’s resistance, Dracula vanishes. Lucy awakens and recounts the encounter to Mina (“The Mist”). Mina then explains that she has received word from Harker in Budapest and must leave immediately to marry him. Lucy congratulates her, thrilled that they will both soon be brides. Observing from a distance, Dracula recommits himself to the pursuit of Mina (“The Mist – Reprise”).
Distressed by Mina’s preparations to depart, Dracula is compelled to follow her to the train station, where he confesses his longing from afar. Torn between her loyalty to Harker and a growing affinity towards the Count, Mina contemplates her unspoken pull towards darkness. She ultimately travels to Budapest and marries Harker (“A Perfect Life / Loving You Keeps Me Alive / Whitby Bay – Reprise”). Simultaneously, Lucy weds Holmwood in London (“The Weddings”). Believing Mina has slipped beyond his grasp, a furious Dracula appears at Lucy’s wedding reception, causing her to collapse.
Concerned for Lucy’s failing health, Dr. Seward summons Abraham Van Helsing, a renowned expert on obscure diseases. Van Helsing safeguards Lucy’s room with garlic and provides her with holy water to protect her during sleep. However, enthralled by Dracula’s influence, Lucy discards the protections and invites the vampire into her chamber (“The Invitation”). Dracula drains her blood while feeding her his own in return.
The following morning, Lucy attacks Holmwood, her teeth transformed into fangs. Van Helsing intervenes, saving Holmwood and driving Lucy into a frenzy with sacred prayers. Lucy soon dies, leaving Holmwood devastated and bewildered. Van Helsing consoles him while revealing the culprit is a vampire (“Nosferatu”).
Lucy is buried but rises again as a vampire. Dracula returns to her and proclaims her the first of his new “dynasty.” He sends her out to claim her initial victims before taking flight into the night sky in the form of a colossal bat (“Life After Life”).
Act II
Two weeks later, Van Helsing leads Holmwood, Morris, Dr. Seward, Harker, and Mina to Lucy’s tomb. In the intervening days, a disturbing epidemic has arisen: small children are being abducted in the dead of night and returned drained of blood. Van Helsing seeks to convince the still-skeptical Holmwood, Morris, and Dr. Seward that the culprit is the undead Lucy Westenra. Upon entering the tomb, they discover Lucy’s coffin is empty. She soon appears, carrying a child she intends to feed upon, and is confronted by the group. Through religious incantations, they force her back into her coffin. With great anguish, Holmwood drives a stake through Lucy’s heart, while Van Helsing decapitates her, finally releasing her soul. ("Undead One, Surrender").
Reflecting on the horrors of the previous day, Mina once again hears Dracula’s voice within her mind. When the Count asks why she makes him wait, Mina accuses him of murdering Lucy. Dracula counters that Lucy was not killed but granted eternal life—and that it was the vampire hunters who truly destroyed her. Despite herself, Mina feels a powerful and unsettling attraction to him. Torn between fear of his immense power and a growing emotional pull, she begs him not to force her love unless it is genuine (“Please Don’t Make Me Love You”).
Van Helsing uncovers the extent of Renfield’s psychic bond with Dracula and visits his cell alongside Mina. Renfield explains his devotion to the Count and his belief that he has been promised eternal life. When Van Helsing questions whether they have met before, Renfield chillingly claims knowledge of Van Helsing’s wife and her fate. Deeply shaken, Van Helsing abruptly leaves. Mina attempts to reason with Renfield, asking whether eternal life is worth the damnation of his soul. Renfield warns her of Dracula’s intentions but soon realizes he has sealed his own doom. After he is left alone, Dracula appears and kills his former servant (“The Master’s Song (Reprise)”).
Van Helsing then reflects privately on his past, recalling his youth and his wife, Roseanne. Her death at the hands of a vampire—implied to have been Dracula—drove him to dedicate his life to hunting the undead in her memory (“Roseanne”).
Meanwhile, Holmwood, Morris, and Dr. Seward discover Dracula’s London refuge in the house Harker sold to him while imprisoned in Transylvania. Van Helsing departs with the men, leaving Mina alone with Harker. As Harker sees them out, Mina becomes increasingly consumed by a desire to save Dracula from destruction. Unable to resist her longing any longer, she invites him into the house (“If I Could Fly”). Dracula places Harker into a trance and seduces Mina. Their moment of passion culminates when Dracula cuts open his chest and allows Mina to drink his blood, intending to transform her into a vampire (“Mina's Seduction”). The hunters return and confront Dracula, forcing him to flee (“It’s Over”).
Through hypnosis, Van Helsing uses Mina’s growing telepathic bond to uncover Dracula’s whereabouts. She reveals that he is retreating to Transylvania after the destruction of his London sanctuary. Fearing her own damnation, Mina extracts a solemn promise from each of the men—including Harker—that they will kill her if her soul cannot be saved (“Jonathan’s Promise”). The group prepares for the journey and the final confrontation (“Deep in the Darkest Night”). Left alone, Harker agonizes over the terrible vow he has made but resolves to honor it (“Before the Summer Ends”).
Aboard a train, Van Helsing once again hypnotizes Mina, who reveals that Dracula is concealed within a coffin in the hull of a ship. The trance deepens as Dracula’s presence overwhelms her mind, forcing Van Helsing to break the connection. Mina withdraws to rest while the others plot their next move (“The Train Sequence / Life After Life (Reprise)”).
Returned to his castle, Dracula broods over the solitude and emotional desolation that accompany his immortal existence. Touched by her purity, he comes to the realization that he has fallen profoundly in love with Mina (“The Longer I Live”).
The hunters arrive at Dracula’s castle, where the final confrontation unfolds. Morris is killed when he attempts to stake Dracula in his coffin. Van Helsing leaves Mina protected within a sacred circle of holy water while he joins Holmwood, Harker, and Dr. Seward in battling Dracula’s Brides. Dracula soon appears before Mina, who chooses to follow the creature she loves into darkness (“At Last”). However, upon hearing the death cries of his Brides, Dracula realizes that Mina would share their fate if she becomes a vampire. Unable to condemn her to such an existence, he relinquishes his own desire.
Knowing that only his death can save her, Dracula asks Mina to release him from his cursed immortality using a Bowie knife taken from Morris. Weeping, Mina fulfills her lover's final wish just as the hunters return. Harker finds his wife cradling Dracula’s body as it disintegrates into dust. (“Finale: There’s Always a Tomorrow”).
