Mike's Daily Reads

Carmilla: The Musical

A Gothic story of longing, fear, obsession, and the dangerous intimacy of being truly seen.

Carmilla: The Musical is my musical adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu’s classic Gothic novella, reimagining one of literature’s earliest vampire stories through original songs, expanded character moments, and a greater focus on the complicated relationship at the heart of the original.

The story follows a young woman living an isolated life far from the wider world when a mysterious stranger named Carmilla suddenly enters it. What begins as an unexpected companionship gradually becomes something far more intense, as affection, fascination, unease, and desire become increasingly difficult to separate from one another.

That tension is at the center of the musical.

Rather than treating Carmilla simply as a monster story, this adaptation leans into the emotional ambiguity that has allowed the novella to endure for generations. Carmilla can be frightening, tender, seductive, lonely, manipulative, sincere, and dangerous—sometimes all at once. The relationship at the center of the story is similarly complicated, existing somewhere between romance, obsession, vulnerability, and horror.

The musical format gives me an opportunity to explore emotions that the characters cannot—or will not—say aloud. Conversations can give way to confessions, memories, fantasies, fears, and desires expressed through song. For a story already filled with dreams, secrecy, longing, and repression, music provides another way into the inner lives of its characters.

The adaptation draws heavily from the Gothic atmosphere of Le Fanu’s original work while expanding upon its relationships and emotional arcs. Lonely estates, candlelit rooms, unsettling dreams, unanswered questions, and the constant feeling that something beautiful may also be dangerous all remain central to the world of the story.

At its heart, however, Carmilla: The Musical is about connection.

It explores the desperation to be understood by another person, the uncomfortable space where love and possession begin to resemble one another, and how something deeply intimate can also become frightening. Carmilla and the young woman drawn to her are not connected by something simple, and the musical embraces that contradiction rather than trying to remove it.

There is horror in Carmilla, but there is also sadness.

There is romance, but it is never uncomplicated.

And beneath the supernatural mystery is a deeply human question: what are we willing to risk for the chance to be loved?

Carmilla: The Musical is still a developing project, with its story, lyrics, characters, and musical identity continuing to take shape. For now, it exists as my own exploration of a story I love—an attempt to take the emotions hidden between the lines of Le Fanu’s novella and give them a voice.

Perhaps one day, those voices will find their way beyond the page.

Coming Soon.