SONORA — Sierra Repertory Theatre presents two wildly different comedies in rotating repertory this fall at the East Sonora Theatre.

* “Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors” by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen plays through Oct.31.

* Larissa FastHorse’s “The Thanksgiving Play” runs through Nov. 1.

In Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors, Count Dracula has arrived in England, every bit as mysterious, seductive, and dangerous as advertised. Unfortunately for him, he has landed in a version of Victorian England populated by five actors playing more than a dozen characters. As Lucy Westfeldt, Jonathan Harker, Mina, Van Helsing, and company are drawn into Dracula’s supernatural orbit, Bram Stoker’s gothic classic becomes a breathless comic chase filled with lightning-fast transformations, shameless theatricality, romance, horror, and increasingly ridiculous terror.

“Dracula begins with one of the most familiar stories in Western literature and treats it like a theatrical playground,” said Director Jerry Lee. “It moves with its own delightful confidence and may or may not include moments of terror.”

In The Thanksgiving Play, Logan has received a grant to create an educational Thanksgiving pageant. She is determined to make it thoughtful, inclusive, historically responsible, and completely free of the offensive stereotypes that have traditionally accompanied the holiday. Unfortunately, the harder she and her three co-writers work to avoid saying the wrong thing, the less certain they become about what they are allowed to say at all.

Written by Sicangu Lakota playwright Larissa FastHorse, The Thanksgiving Play is a sharply funny satire about good intentions, representation, American mythology, and what happens when a room full of people becomes so frightened of getting something wrong that creating anything at all begins to seem impossible.

“The characters in The Thanksgiving Play desperately want to make something good,” Director Scott Viets said. “More importantly, they want to be good. The harder they try to guarantee both, the more complicated and much funnier everything becomes.”

The repertory pairing invites audiences to look twice at the same stage. The gothic castles, vampire hunters, and Victorian melodrama of Dracula give way to the painfully ordinary high school classroom where the artists of The Thanksgiving Play attempt to make something responsible, meaningful, and safe.

Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors runs approximately 90 minutes without an intermission and contains comic violence, sexual innuendo, references to blood and death, alcohol, supernatural themes, and comic horror.

The Thanksgiving Play runs approximately 75 minutes without an intermission and contains strong language, sexual references, discussions of race and cultural representation, references to violence against Indigenous peoples, and intentionally offensive historical stereotypes presented in a satirical context.

Performances take place at Sierra Rep’s East Sonora Theatre, located at 13891 Mono Way in Sonora. Tickets and performance schedules are available at sierrarep.org or by calling the Box Office at (209) 532-3120.

Repertory Theatre operates two professional venues in East Sonora and Historic Columbia State Park. The East Sonora Theatre is located at 13891 Mono Way, Sonora, and the Fallon House Theatre is located at 11175 Washington Street, Columbia.

Both venues are ADA accessible and air-conditioned.