Nocturne Theatre is giving Frankenstein a musical sequel, and this time it is Victor Frankenstein himself, not his Monster, who is brought back from the dead. The Glendale, California theatre presents Frankenstein: Resurrection, an original new musical written and directed by Justin Meyer with an original score by composer Chris Thomas, running September 11 through November 1, 2026. Rather than staging Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, the show picks up after it and imagines a sequel.
A Frankenstein Sequel
First published anonymously in 1818, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has inspired more than two centuries of adaptations. Frankenstein: Resurrection does not restage the novel. It uses Shelley’s characters and ideas as the foundation for a new story, one in which Victor Frankenstein’s pursuit of conquering death has finally succeeded, except this time he is the one brought back from the dead.
Victor awakens in a secret laboratory beneath the Paris Morgue, resurrected by the brilliant Doctor Seraphina Pretorius. Convinced that the doctor’s sister Elsa is the reincarnation of his lost bride Elizabeth, he falls into obsession and madness, and the Monster guides him through the Nine Circles of Hell toward a final truth: the greatest monster he ever created may have been himself. The production frames the whole descent around a single question, which is the cost of refusing to let go.
“Frankenstein brings together two of my greatest passions: the imaginative possibilities of science-fiction horror and my immense respect for Mary Shelley’s original novel, a story whose questions about creation, humanity, ambition and consequence remain as powerful today as ever,” said Justin Meyer, who wrote and directed the musical.
A Horror-Movie Lineage
The show is an homage to the films that shaped the genre as much as to the book. “My inspiration draws from the rich lineage of cinematic horror—from Hammer’s The Curse of Frankenstein and Universal’s Bride of Frankenstein to the stark science-fiction terror of The Thing from Another World,” said Meyer.
The Team Behind It
Meyer is co-owner of the Nocturne and the writer behind its original productions, including Madame Scrooge: A Christmas Carol Musical, The Eaves: A Psychological Thriller, The Soul of New Orleans: A Musical Séance, and House of Spirits: A Haunted Cocktail Soirée. The theatre runs darker than most, by design. “At the Nocturne Theatre, we like to do a little bit edgier, darker, spookier shows,” the team said in a behind-the-scenes video for its reimagined Little Shop of Horrors, a production whose creatures came from longtime Nocturne creature designer Tanya Seir. That character-first, creature-heavy approach carries across the theatre’s work, from Madame Scrooge to its paranormal plays.
The theatre’s reimagined Little Shop of Horrors shows that creature work in action.
An Original Score by Chris Thomas
The score comes from Chris Thomas, an award-winning composer whose work spans film and television, including Lost and Haymaker, video games, including Epic Games’ Fortnite, and concert and theatrical works. His concert music has been performed at Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, and the Sydney Opera House, with recent orchestral premieres in Brussels, Berlin, and at the Cité des Arts in Paris. He composed the Malheur Symphony, featured in his 2019 TEDx Talk, and has won a Hollywood Music in Media Award and The American Prize in Composition. Thomas is also a fixture in themed entertainment, having scored work for Knott’s Berry Farm, Queen Mary Chill, Evermore, and the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride, and he founded Music for Haunts in 2012.
Frankenstein: Resurrection reunites Thomas with Meyer, after the two first worked together on Madame Scrooge. For Thomas, the music serves the story first. “My philosophy is, themes equal connection,” Thomas wrote in an essay on scoring attractions for our sister publication, Seasonal Entertainment Source, where he argued that music should establish “tone, atmosphere, time, place, texture, and the qualities of a character.”
The making of that Madame Scrooge production offers a look at how the two work together.
The Venue
The Nocturne Theatre, formerly the historic Glendale Centre Theatre, is one of the oldest operating theatres-in-the-round in the United States. Under Melissa and Justin Meyer of Meyer2Meyer Entertainment, it has built a reputation for intimate, in-the-round productions where the staging surrounds the audience on every side. The company recently opened a new upstairs space for its paranormal play The Eaves.
Tickets and Dates
Frankenstein: Resurrection runs September 11 through November 1, 2026 at the Nocturne Theatre, 324 North Orange Street, Glendale, California. Tickets range from $46.50 to $75.50 at thenocturnetheatre.com.
