XLRI students stage the play at Tata Auditorium on Wednesday. (Bhola Prasad)

Aspiring managers turned, er, vampires with a social cause.

Dracula or Dramatic Association of XLRI hosted its annual public production at Tata Auditorium on Wednesday.

The fact that they took their annual theatrical outing seriously was evident from the choice of the play. Dracula presented “Silence: the court is in session”, adapted from acclaimed Marathi playwright Vijay Tendulkar’s Shantata! Court Chalu Aahe written in 1963, which was based on a Swiss short story.

Dracula does perform short plays and nukkad nataks. But the annual public production is a bona fide biggie.

“Yes, we are quite serious about our yearly date with greasepaint. We were looking for a good script when somebody told us about this Marathi play famed in literary circles. We loved it and went ahead with it,” said Anup Arora, director of the play.

The 90-minute-long play has eight characters. It asks if a woman has a voice even in urban and educated societies.

“We wanted a play that left an open-ended question. The taut script bowled us over,” said actor Kalyani Singh.

Going by the intent expressions and applause, the audience comprising students, faculty members, corporate and other guests, loved the show.

Directed by Ankur, with effective art direction by Hussain Zafar, the play also used lighting and soundtrack by Sinchan and Saurya to take the story forward. Besides Kalyani, actors were Sushant Warde, Kirti Anand, Parul Singhal, Ashish Roy Kohli, Avinash Chopde, Romil Vijayvergia and Naina Kumar.

Last year, Dracula had staged Toba Tek Singh by Saadat Hasan Manto. Clearly, these budding managers read beyond Peter Drucker.