REVIEW: Original Musical Blood Runs Cold Thrills Audiences with Unique Story and Talented Performances

By Camila Avila
July 14, 2022

The poster design for the show. Credit Julia Stafford

VIRGINIA -- Nora gets home from a long day at work, collapsing on her couch. The music starts to swell, she opens her mouth to sing - and she sits back down, evidently having nothing to sing about. This is the protagonist of “Blood Runs Cold” an original musical playing at Fourth Wall Theater, an original horror-comedy musical written by local writers Tess Lyons and Julia Stafford.

“Blood Runs Cold” stars Nora (Devon Roland), a notably dull woman surrounded by people who live much more interesting lives. When a stranger drops off a diary at her front doorstep, Nora begins to be haunted by the ghost of her deceased wife, Iris (Lyida Anne Burke), who claims that she can be brought back to life at the cost of someone else's life. Unfortunately for Iris, Nora refuses to play along with her scheme, causing supernatural forces to rewrite the story halfway through, snatching the role of protagonist away from Nora and giving it to her coworker, Melanie (Paige Martin). The second act follows Nora's journey as she aims to save Melanie from being the protagonist of the same horror story she experienced.

The show certainly excels in the “comedy” half of “horror-comedy,” thanks in no small part to its cast of minor characters: Adrian (Grayson MacDonald), Taylor (Juniper Shannon), and Sam (Anjali Willis). Despite playing a very small part in the drama of Nora, Iris, and Melanie, these three steal the show whenever they're onstage, serving as incredibly judgemental and gossipy narrators, wildly speculating on the cause behind the strange behavior of Nora and Melanie.

Alongside its comedic elements, the show has its serious parts, thanks to a fantastic score written by Cassandra Quinn, a local grad student pursuing a MFA in music composition. The title number, “Blood Runs Cold,” is a chilling, intense number supported by Burke's haunting vocals. Throughout the show, Quinn layers different melodies over each other to powerful effect, seen in “Whatever it Takes,” a duet between Nora and Melanie, and the Finale, “The Story Resets / Finale.”

While its story is well written, the show tends to drag towards the beginning of the second act. After the role of protagonist is passed from Nora to Melanie, Nora goes through a character development, choosing to step out of the sidelines and take action in order to save Melanie from her haunting. Her plan, however, is never expanded upon. Nora has three songs in act two, “Comfort Zone,” the aforementioned “Whatever it Takes,” and “Someone Has to Try” - likely to make up for her musical silence in act one. While both songs are musically well written, and performed well, the lyrics are a little lacking in substance, and feel more like a chance to show off Roland's talents and pad for time rather than a chance to develop the plot, offering little beyond a declaration that Nora is going to do…something. The “ritual” mentioned throughout the show and Nora's plan to stop it are both vague, and these slow parts could have been used to expand on either of these concepts.

An interesting concept within the show is the contrast between “the story that was meant to be told” and the story that we see onstage. The forces that move protagonist-ness from person to person are simply called “The Voices from Beyond,” played as a collective by the show's ensemble. It's clear that these forces have a story in mind, and the characters aren't playing along like they should. It's an interesting concept that I hope Lyons and Stafford choose to explore in their future work.

The show runs for four more weeks, and despite some rough edges, I strongly recommend this show to anyone interested in horror, meta-horror, and musical theatre.