Over the years, Alexander has worked in almost every technical position in theatre and has directed several plays. He received the Adjudicator's Award for Innovation, for Incorporating Animation, Computer-Generated Effects and Film Sequences with live actors in The Wizard of Oz and received a similar Thea Award for Singin' in the Rain for which he made it rain across the stage. Other theatre directing includes: A Tribute to Judy Garland, Love Letters, I’ll Be Back Before Midnight, The Odd Couple, is currently directing A Christmas Carol the Musical and just completed a successful run of Twelve Angry Men.

 

Films directed by Alexander include: The Missing Piece currently on the festival circuit and recent “Silver Remi Award” winner for ‘Suspense Thriller’ - WorldFest Houston Film Festival; Moonlight Desire (a Dracula video) for which Mickey Rooney lent his voice as the character of Prof. Van Helsing; The Jigsaw Puzzle, which has been screened at film festivals in New York, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Salem and Milan, receiving the “Special Festival BUZZ Award” (most talked about film) from the New York International Independent Film Festival. His more “artsy” vampire film, First Light, has been screened in festivals all over the world, winning several awards including: the “Bronze Remi Award” from WorldFest Houston Film Festival, “Special Commendation” in the Festival of Fantastic Films (UK), “Best Music/Soundtrack” in the Toronto Online Film Festival, and Nominations for “Best Director” and “Best Technical Achievement” from the International Festival of Cinema and Technology (World Tour Film Festival). His short Star Wars spoof entitled Blasted Behavior was selected by George Lucas as one of the finalists in AtomFilms’ 2009 Star Wars Fan Film Competition.

Alexander is currently adapting and directing a dramatic reading of DRACULA THE UN-DEAD at the gothic Bathurst Street Theatre, featuring original music, in homage to the reading that Bram Stoker did, using actors, for his novel Dracula in 1897. In 1997, Alexander had directed a similar event Dracula Re-Staged - A Re-Adaptation of Bram Stoker's Original Dramatic Reading.

 

Q: Mr. Galant, thank you for taking the time to do this Q & A. Can you tell us a little bit about your current manuscript?

 

A: The story takes place in two time-periods: Victorian London and present-day. In parallel stories between two centuries, in the past, the infamous Jack the Ripper, and in the present a 'copy-cat' Ripper who is killing women with the same name, as the original victims.

 

In the past we see how the original Mary J. Kelly lived and the circumstances that brought her into the Ripper case. In the Victorian era, a time shrouded by superstition, Inspector Abberline tries to incorporate new science into the hunt for the Ripper. Whereas in the present, investigators are too blinded by science to accept a supernatural possibility. An ex-profiler by the name of MJ (Mary Jane) Kelly decides she has to find the Ripper before she becomes his fifth, (most brutal) victim. As the two Ripper investigations continue we learn that Scotland Yard kept a vital clue hidden from the public and press in 1888... something that the 'Copy-Cat Ripper' seems to know and also duplicates in his ritual killings. Somewhere between science and supernatural is the answer.

 

Q: In our research about your past we see that Dracula comes up throughout the years. Can you share with us a little bit of your history with Dracula?

A: My history with Dracula goes back a long way. In 1992, I was developing a Dracula TV series entitled “Moonlight Desire”. I used a page from Bram’s own handwritten notes (a photo of that page was published in a book in 1991) where it listed characters that were going to be in his novel, for example there was a name ‘Cotford’ and next to the name Bram wrote ‘police detective’ so my series pilot had a police detective named Cotford. I shot a promo video for the series for which Mickey Rooney narrated as Prof. Van Helsing. In 1997 I staged a re-creation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 dramatic reading of his novel for the centennial anniversary of the famous book. Also in 1997 I was at Dracula ’97 where myself and a co-writer were pitching a movie script entitled Undead. In 1999, I wrote a sequel novel to Dracula using letters and journal entries as Bram had done. I co-wrote a screenplay version of that unpublished novel. In 2007, my path with Dracula crossed again as I started to assist with the novel ‘Dracula the Un-Dead’.

 

Q: Please tell us about a little more detail of your Dracula TV series entitled “Moonlight Desire.”

 

A: During the 80’s there were a lot of campy vampire films and TV shows. I wanted to bring it back to the ‘dark side’ so to speak, and wanted to go back to the Lord of the Vampires. So in 1992 I started developing my Dracula series. It was going to be set in present-day, where modern-day pirates were intercepting artefacts brought up from the Titanic. Unbeknownst to the pirates one of the crates contained Dracula who had been trapped underwater for eighty years. Dracula would eventually discover that the descendants of the original vampire hunters were scattered all over with no knowledge of what happened to their ancestors in Victorian times or that there was anything more than a coincidence to Bram Stoker’s novel.

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