DOCSLIB.ORG

CC Play Guide R2

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
CC Play Guide R2 PLAY GUIDE KATI McFADZN IN BY CHARES DICKENS 2015 2016 About ATC ................................................................................................................................................. 1 Synopsis of the Play ................................................................................................................................. 2 Charles Dickens: Biography ..................................................................................................................... 4 Dickens and His Writing ........................................................................................................................... 5 Dickens’ World ......................................................................................................................................... 8 Behind the Scenes: An Interview .............................................................................................................. 10 Glossary of Theatre Terms......................................................................................................................... 12 Classroom Activities................................................................................................................................. 15 Chronology of Dickens’ Work .................................................................................................................... 16 Selected Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 17 SUPPORT FOR ATC’S LEARNING & EDUCATION PROGRAMMING HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY: APS Rosemont Copper Arizona Commission on the Arts Stonewall Foundation Bank of America Foundation Target Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona The Boeing Company City of Glendale The Donald Pitt Family Foundation Community Foundation for Southern Arizona The Johnson Family Foundation, Inc. Cox Charities The Lovell Foundation Downtown Tucson Partnership The Marshall Foundation Enterprise Holdings Foundation The Maurice and Meta Gross Foundation Ford Motor Company Fund The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Foundation The Stocker Foundation JPMorgan Chase The WIlliam L. and Ruth T. Pendleton Memorial Fund John and Helen Murphy Foundation Tucson Medical Center National Endowment for the Arts Tucson Pima Arts Council Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture Wells Fargo PICOR Charitable Foundation ABOUT ATC Arizona Theatre Company is a professional, not-for-profit theatre company. This means that all of our artists, administrators and production staff are paid professionals, and the income we receive from ticket sales and contributions goes right back into our budget to create our work, rather than to any particular person as a profit. Eash season, ATC employs hundreds of actors, directors and designers from all over the country to create the work you see on stage. In addition, ATC currently employs approximately 50 staff members in our production shops and administrative offices in Tucson and Phoenix during our season. Among these people are carpenters, painters, marketing professionals, fundraisers, stage directors, sound and light board operators, tailors, costume designers, box office agents, stage crew - the list is endless - representing am amazing range of talents and skills. We are also supported by a Board of Trustees, a group of business and community leaders who volunteer their time and expertise to assist the theatre in financial and legal matters, advise in marketing and fundraising, and help represent the theatre in our community. Roughly 150,000 people attend our shows every year, and several thousand of those people support us with charitable contributions in addition to purchasing their tickets. Businesses large and small, private foundations and the city and state governments also support our work financially. All of this is in support of our vision and mission: The mission of Arizona Theatre Company is to inspire, engage and entertain - one moment, one production and one audience at a time. Our mission is to create professional theatre that continually strives to reach new levels of artistic excellence that resonates locally, in the state of Arizona and throughout the nation. In order to fulfill our mission, the theatre produces a broad repertoire ranging from classics to new works, engages artists of the highest caliber, and is committed to assuring access to the broadest spectrum of citizens. The Temple of Music and Art, the home of ATC shows in downtown The Herberger Theater Center, ATC’s performance venue in downtown Tucson. Phoenix. 1 SYNOPSIS A Christmas Carol Written by Charles Dickens Directed by Matthew Wiener Featuring Katie McFadzen The story begins in Victorian London where Ebenezer Scrooge runs his counting house. Scrooge is a miserable, miserly old man who begrudges coal to his clerks and happiness to all. Christmas seems to make him even more miserable. He turns down an invitation for Christmas dinner from his nephew Fred and nearly denies Bob Cratchit, his hardworking clerk, the day off for Christmas. He returns home to his cold, dark house and settles in for bed. He is shortly awakened by a horrific sight – the ghost of his former Katie McFadzen in ATC’s production of A Christmas Carol. business partner, Marley. Bound in chains, Marley explains that he has come back to warn Scrooge to change his hard ways to escape the torment that Marley now suffers. Lest he not be convinced by Marley himself Scrooge will be visited by three spirits. The ghost disappears, and Scrooge falls back asleep. Scrooge is awakened by church bells. He thinks back on Marley's visitation. “Just a dream,” he decides, until he turns to discover a woman standing behind him. “Who are you?” he cries. “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past,” she says, “and I am here to take you on a journey.” The ghost takes Scrooge by the hand, and they seemingly fly back in time, to a time and place when Ebenezer was young. He once again witnesses the loneliness and the happiness of his young years and relives the pain of giving up the woman he truly loved. The ghost leads him gently home to his bed. Excruciatingly awake, Scrooge awaits his next visitor. The visitor soon arrives, a big, jolly man who introduces himself as the Ghost of Christmas Present. He takes Scrooge on a journey, too, but not in time. They visit people and places that Scrooge knows now. Everywhere, everyone is celebrating Christmas. They stop in at Nephew Fred's party, and Bob Cratchit's Christmas dinner. Scrooge is especially touched by one of the Cratchit children, Tiny Tim. Although crippled and ill, Tiny Tim's positive spirit shines, and touches even a mean old man like Scrooge. 2 He asks the spirit about Tiny Tim's future. “I see a vacant seat at the chimney corner,” says the ghost, “and a crutch without an owner.” “No!” declares Scrooge. “Can't these things change?” “Living men may change them,” the spirit replies leaving Ebenezer home in bed with that thought. Next a frightful vision awakens Scrooge: A tall, silent figure shrouded in robes waits for him. Scrooge can only glimpse a hooded skull. “Ghost of the Future!” cries Scrooge. “I fear you more than any specter I have seen.“ The ghost reaches a bony hand toward Ebenezer, and the room fades away. Scrooge finds himself at a funeral – a strangely unemotional funeral. No one seems to mourn this death – no one has any kind words to say about the dead man. Scrooge begins to feel uneasy regarding the identity of the dead man. There is something familiar about him. Then he notices Bob Cratchit, kneeling by a grave – a small grave, just large enough for a child. The ghost points to another headstone: it bears the name of Ebenezer Scrooge. “Tell me these things can change!” Scrooge pleads with the spirit. “I am changed! What does Christmas tell us – if not that things can change? I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year! I will not shut out the lessons that you spirits have taught me!” Scrooge is suddenly back in his own bed – alone. Happy to be alive, he bounds out of bed, not knowing what to do first. He opens the window and shouts down to a boy in the street, “Tell me, my good lad, what day is today?” “Why, it's Christmas Day,” replies the boy. Ebenezer is overjoyed that the spirits worked so quickly. He can celebrate Christmas! He shouts to the boy to buy the big turkey in the butcher's window. Delighted with his plan to deliver the bird to the Cratchits, he pays them a Christmas visit and later shows up for Christmas dinner with Fred. Everyone is amazed and delighted by the change in him. Because of Christmas, Ebenezer Scrooge becomes a good man – one who knows how to keep Christmas well. 3 CHARLES DICKENS: BIOGRAPHY Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Landport, Portsea, England. He was the second of eight children born to a minor government clerk and his wife. Dickens' father was a poor manager of money and lacked the skills or opportunity to change jobs. He was constantly in debt and, as was often the case in England at that time, was sent to debtor's prison when he could not satisfy his creditors. Young Charles never forgot the pain of that period or the harsh lessons he learned by being sent off to work long hours at hard labor. Dickens vowed that someday he would change those conditions for himself and other young people. Thanks to a timely legacy, the Dickens family was able to get far enough out of debt to send Charles to school for two
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Household Edition, the Cheap Reprint, And
    PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/133341 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2021-09-25 and may be subject to change. ૺ$)DYRXURQWKH0LOOLRQૻ7KH+RXVHKROG(GLWLRQWKH &KHDS5HSULQWDQGWKH3RVWKXPRXV,OOXVWUDWLRQDQG 5HFHSWLRQRI&KDUOHV'LFNHQV Chris Louttit Book History, Volume 17, 2014, pp. 321-364 (Article) 3XEOLVKHGE\7KH-RKQV+RSNLQV8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV DOI: 10.1353/bh.2014.0013 For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/bh/summary/v017/17.louttit.html Access provided by Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen (17 Feb 2015 14:44 GMT) “A Favour on the Million” The Household Edition, the Cheap Reprint, and the Posthumous Illustration and Reception of Charles Dickens Chris Louttit In A Hundred Years of Publishing, his history of Chapman and Hall, Arthur Waugh calls the Household Edition of Charles Dickens’s Works “one of the most ambitious ventures that the firm had faced for years.”1 The profession- al memoir of the engravers for the project (the Dalziel Brothers) is equally keen to stress its notability, describing it as “by far the most important com- mission ever placed in our hands by Messrs. Chapman & Hall.”2 Since the early years of the twentieth century, however, Dickens’s critics and readers have largely ignored the apparent significance of this “new, complete edition of Dickens, reset in large type on a quarto page, and furnished with entirely new illustrations by a fresh set of artists”3 which appeared between 1871 and 1879 in weekly numbers (at 1d.), monthly parts (at 6d.), and volume form (at between 2s.
    [Show full text]
  • A Christmas Carol by CHARLES DICKENS Adapted by CRISPIN WHITTELL Directed by LAUREN KEATING
    Wurtele Thrust Stage / Nov 13 – Dec 29, 2018 A Christmas Carol by CHARLES DICKENS adapted by CRISPIN WHITTELL directed by LAUREN KEATING PLAY GUIDE Inside THE PLAY Synopsis • 4 Characters • 5 THE STORY Comments on A Christmas Carol • 6 PLAY FEATURES A Novel Petition for London’s Poor • 7 From Director Lauren Keating • 9 THE PLAYWRIGHT Dickens and the Christmas Tradition • 11 BUILDING THE PRODUCTION From the Creative Team • 13 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Discussion Questions and Classroom Activities • 16 For Further Reading and Understanding • 19 Play guides are made possible by Guthrie Theater Play Guide Copyright 2018 DRAMATURG Jo Holcomb GRAPHIC DESIGNER Akemi Graves Guthrie Theater, 818 South 2nd Street, Minneapolis, MN 55415 All rights reserved. With the exception of classroom use by teachers and individual personal use, no part of this Play Guide ADMINISTRATION 612.225.6000 may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic BOX OFFICE 612.377.2224 or 1.877.44.STAGE TOLL-FREE or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in guthrietheater.org • Joseph Haj, artistic director writing from the publishers. Some materials published herein are written especially for our Guide. Others are reprinted by permission of their publishers. The Guthrie creates transformative theater experiences that ignite the imagination, The Guthrie Theater receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts. This activity is made possible in part stir the heart, open the mind and build community through the illumination of our by the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation common humanity. by the Minnesota State Legislature.
    [Show full text]
  • A Christmas Carol
    TEACHER PREPARATION GUIDE Generous Support Provided By: By Charles Dickens Adapted & Directed By Gerald Freedman Table of Contents The Background 3 Dear Educator 4 GLT: Our History, Our Future 5 A Note to Students: What to Expect at the Theater 6 About the Author 9 Dickens and Christmas 10 Adapting Charles Dickens 12 Fifteen Years Later with the Director 15 A Perspective 18 Tiny Tim’s Ailment 19 Humbug? It’s More Like Hard Work 23 Costume Design The Curriculum 24 Summary of the Play 27 Questions for Discussion: Prior to Attending the Play 28 Vocabulary 29 Writing Prompts/Activities 33 How to Write a Review 34 Additional Writing Prompts 35 Additional Activities 42 Questions for Discussion: After Attending the Performance 44 Adaptations for the Screen 46 Notes 47 Generous Support 48 About Great Lakes Theater 2 Dear Educator, We welcome you and your students to Great Lakes Theater’s production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Northeast Ohio’s best-loved holiday tradition — GLT’s production of A Christmas Carol returns to the Ohio Theatre. Ebenezer Scrooge is literally haunted by his past — his present and future too! Aided by four lively, mysterious spirits, Scrooge re-examines his life, half-lived, and is given one last chance to change his fate. His exhilarating journey, filled with humor and music, abounds with charm — as well as dazzling stagecraft and enchanting effects. A cast of two-dozen actors recreates over sixty immortal characters in this heartwarming, timeless tale. This guide is designed — through its essays, discussion questions and classroom activities — to give students both an introduction to, and a point of entry for, a personal exploration of A Christmas Carol.
    [Show full text]
  • The Face of Charles Dickens - Portraits of the Great Author Transcript
    The face of Charles Dickens - portraits of the great author Transcript Date: Thursday, 24 November 2005 - 12:00AM THE FACE OF CHARLES DICKENS – PORTRAITS OF THE GREAT AUTHOR ANDREW XAVIER The Charles Dickens Museum is in Doughty Street, London, and is a house that Dickens lived in at the beginning of his career; it was when he became famous. I mention the word “famous” to start off with, because with the portraits that we will be looking at tonight, the level of Dickens’ celebrity was so high that he really, as you may know, was portrayed probably more times than most of his other contemporaries, other Victorian personalities so to speak. He was 25 when he moved into Doughty Street, and he was working on Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. He only lived there for three years, but it was obviously a very important time for him. When moved there everyone knew him under his pseudonym, Boz, but by the time he left three years later, the world knew the name “Charles Dickens”. A short time after working at the Charles Dickens Museum, I became aware of a strange fact: portraits of the author were almost as numerous as his writings. I became very interested in the near obsession with Dickens’ image. This was both during his lifetime and also beyond his lifetime. He is one of the most depicted of the great Victorians. Tonight, I want to show you a wide selection of these very different and unusual portrayals, some of which have become controversial in Dickensian and artistic circles.
    [Show full text]
  • Contributors to This Issue
    Contributors to this Issue Dickens Quarterly, Volume 37, Number 1, March 2020, pp. 3-4 (Article) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/dqt.2020.0000 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/750099 [ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ] DICKENS QUARTERLY 3 Contributors to this Issue # Joel J. Brattin, Professor of English Literature at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, continues his long-standing interest in the evolution of Dickens’s texts, especially Dickens’s manuscript revisions. He is editing A Tale of Two Cities for Oxford University Press, and editing Nicholas Nickleby with Elizabeth James, also for OUP. Joshua Brorby is a PhD candidate at Washington University in St. Louis. His dissertation, Faith in Translation: Rewriting Secularity in the British Empire, examines writers who transported unfamiliar religious ideas and texts to English readers, with emphasis on George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, F. Max Müller, and the Taiping Rebellion in Southern China. Sean Grass is Professor of English at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He has published The Commodification of Identity in Victorian Narrative: Autobiography, Sensation, and the Literary Marketplace (Cambridge UP, 2019), Charles Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend: A Publishing History (Ashgate, 2014), The Self in the Cell: Narrating the Victorian Prisoner(Routledge, 2003) and numerous articles on Dickens and his contemporaries. He is the Vice President of the Dickens Society and will assume the Presidency later this year. Leon Litvack is Reader in Victorian Studies at Queen’s University, Belfast. He is Principal Editor of the Charles Dickens Letters Project, and is editing Our Mutual Friend for the Oxford Dickens series.
    [Show full text]
  • The Gissing Newsletter and the Gissing Journal
    Last updated: 15 January 2021. The Gissing Newsletter and The Gissing Journal Welcome to readers interested in George Gissing and his work. As related below, the Gissing Newsletter was founded by Jacob Korg in 1965 when he met in London two scholars he had been corresponding with about Gissing for some time: Shigeru Koike and Pierre Coustillas. This quarterly periodical was first edited by Korg, then by Coustillas from 1969, when C. C. Kohler, the Dorking bookseller who specialised in Gissing among other subjects took over the distribution which he increased considerably until 1990. Kohler was succeeded as bookseller specialising in Gissing books as well as distributor of the Gissing Newsletter by Ros Stinton, who is well-known by all the scholars who attended the Amsterdam and London Conferences devoted to Gissing in 1999 and 2003. In 1991 the Newsletter became the Gissing Journal and it was prepared materially in France by Hélène Coustillas and printed in England. For years scholars who wished to consult the Newsletter and/or the Journal had to apply to libraries which hold a file or to the successive distributors, but from now on they can read all issues from 1965 to 2000 in this computerized version, essentially thanks to Professor Mitsuharu Matsuoka, assisted by Hélène Coustillas who has read over all the numbers accessible on this site. The years after 2000 will be added gradually. May you find in the dozens of numbers that we have published material relevant to your interest. Bonne lecture! Nearly all numbers contain lists of “Notes and News,” and, perhaps even more importantly, of “Recent Publications - volumes and articles.” The Gissing Newsletter (1965-1990) Vol.
    [Show full text]
  • PLAYNOTES Season: 43 Issue: 03
    PLAYNOTES SEASON: 43 ISSUE: 03 CHARLES DICKENS’ HOLIDAY CLASSIC PORTLANDSTAGE BACKGROUND INFORMATION The Theater of Maine INTERVIEWS & COMMENTARY www.portlandstage.org AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY CHARLES DICKENS’ HOLIDAY CLASSIC Portland Stage Company Educational Programs are generously supported through the annual donations of hundreds of individuals and businesses, as well as special funding from: The Davis Family Foundation Funded in part by a grant from our Educational Partner, the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. George & Cheryl Higgins The Onion Foundation Our Education Media partner is THOUGHTS FROM THE EDITORS Thoughts from the Editors: How have you given back to your community? At this time in America’s history it’s hard not to associate A Christmas Carol with the country around us. It seems as though there are two sides to the story: those that take and those that give. Those that welcome change and those that repudiate it. If we can learn anything from Scrooge’s story of introspection, discovery, and realization, it’s that we all need to do a little bit of this in our own lives. Looking at others to cast blame is no different than Scrooge looking at Bob Cratchit as a lazy, underachieving worker. Biases exist from those living in rural areas to those that grew up in cities, or those who wear a hijab to those who wear Greek letters. I think it’s easy to see something very obviously wrong and call others out on it. What’s not easy is to see something wrong and call ourselves out.
    [Show full text]
  • Charles Dickens
    Rockfield, Ash Tree Close, Grayswood, Surrey GU27 2DS, Great Britain Grayswood Press: Charles Dickens The Dickens Magazine The Dickens Magazine is issued twice a year in February and August and is under the direction of the following editorial team: Alan S Watts: Former Honorary General Secretary and President of The Dickens Fellowship. Thelma Grove: Former Joint Honorary General Secretary of The Dickens Fellowship. Dr Tony Williams: Former Joint Honorary General secretary of The Dickens Fellowship. Dr David Parker: Former Curator of The Dickens House Museum, London and President of The Dickens Society. Professor Philip V Allingham: Contributing Editor of The Victorian Website and Consultant to The Dickens Magazine. Lucinda Hawksley Dickens: A great great granddaughter of Charles Dickens and Consultant to The Dickens Magazine. George P Gorniak: Publishing Editor of The Dickens Magazine The Dickens Magazine consists of two parts. Part A is dedicated to a particular novel while Part B looks at the wider Dickens connection and influence. The magazine is illustrated with a range of contemporary and less well known illustrations and photographs. To date five series have been published. A selection of readers comments on The Dickens Magazine: A very attractive and readable magazine with a broad mix of articles. Jennifer M. Charlton (USA) The Dickens Magazine fulfils a valuable function; one that is not filled either by The Dickensian or The Dickens Quarterly. Dr Alan Dilnot (Australia) The magazine is excellently edited and produced. An education in itself. Innes Wright (Scotland) On behalf of President Mrs. Margaret Dent, and all the members of The Dickens Fellowship, York, may I thank all concerned, for a brilliant series of magazines, which is greatly enjoyed by all.
    [Show full text]
  • Dickens's Dream and the Conception of Character
    Dickens's Dream and the Conception of Character Litvack, L. (2007). Dickens's Dream and the Conception of Character. The Dickensian, 103, 5-36. Published in: The Dickensian Document Version: Version created as part of publication process; publisher's layout; not normally made publicly available Queen's University Belfast - Research Portal: Link to publication record in Queen's University Belfast Research Portal General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Queen's University Belfast Research Portal is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The Research Portal is Queen's institutional repository that provides access to Queen's research output. Every effort has been made to ensure that content in the Research Portal does not infringe any person's rights, or applicable UK laws. If you discover content in the Research Portal that you believe breaches copyright or violates any law, please contact [email protected]. Download date:25. Sep. 2021 1 Dickens’s Dream and the Conception of Character LEON LITVACK N THE CHARLES DICKENS MUSEUM there hangs an unfinished watercolour which came to be known as Dickens’s Dream (1875, fig. 1). The artist, Robert William Buss (1804-75) had illustrated 1 Dickens’s ‘A Little Talk about Spring and the Sweeps’ in 1836, and Iwas recommended to Chapman and Hall as a replacement illustrator for Pickwick Papers when the original artist, Robert Seymour (?1798- 1836) committed suicide.
    [Show full text]
  • Home Editorial Authors' Responses Guidelines for Reviewers About Us
    Home Search Every Field Editorial Search Authors' READING VICTORIAN ILLUSTRATION, 1855-1875: SPOILS OF THE LUMBER ROOM Responses Eds. Paul Goldman and Simon Cooke (Ashgate, 2012) xiii + 224 pp. Guidelines Reviewed by Catherine J. Golden on 2012-10-05. For Click here for a PDF version. Reviewers Click here to buy the book on Amazon. About Us Masthead With the rise of material culture studies, numerous scholars interested in the idea of the "material book" (freshly studied by Leah Price) have turned their attention to Victorian illustration. Highlighting what has been called the "golden Feedback age" of aesthetic illustration, contributors to this collection examine graphic traditions, developments in illustration, and contributions of particular illustrators during the mid-Victorian age of production and consumption. The editors acknowledge previous books in the field: pioneering studies of 1860's illustration by collectors like Gleeson White (English Illustration: The Sixties, 1855-70, 1897) and Forrest Reid (Illustrators of the Eighteen-Sixties, 1928), who scrutinized engravings rather than the "material book"; studies of Dickens and his illustrators by Jane Cohen (Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators, 1980) and Michael Steig (Dickens and Phiz, 1978); monographs on illustrated verse such as Lorraine Kooistra's Christina Rossetti and Illustration (2002) and Poetry, Pictures, and Popular Publishing (2011); and collections of essays on the illustrated book such as Book Illustrated (ed. Catherine Golden, 2002) and The Victorian Illustrated Book (ed. Richard Maxwell, 2002). Since Maxwell's book, as the editors of this collection say, "mentions (xxi) but does not contain a chapter on the 'golden age' of Sixties design" (7), this gap is what the present volume seeks to fill.
    [Show full text]