DECEMBER 2015 Nov 27–Dec 30, 2015 By Charles Dickens Adapted by Gregory A. Falls Directed by John Langs Celebrating 40 years! Photo by Chris Bennion December 2015 Volume 12, No. 6 Paul Heppner Publisher Susan Peterson Design & Production Director Ana Alvira, Robin Kessler, Kim Love, Shaun Swick Production Artists and Graphic Design Presented by Mike Hathaway Sales Director Brieanna Bright, Joey Chapman, Gwendolyn Fairbanks, Ann Manning Seattle Area Account Executives GORDON JAMES Marilyn Kallins, Terri Reed, Tim Schuyler Hayman San Francisco/Bay Area Account Executives Brett Hamil Online Editor Jonathan Shipley Associate Online Editor Jonathan Shipley Ad Services Coordinator Carol Yip Sales Coordinator December Holiday Hours M-F: 11 am-6 pm Sat: 11 am-5 pm 10133 Main Street in Bellevue 425-777-4451 www.GordonJamesDiamonds.com Leah Baltus Editor-in-Chief Paul Heppner Publisher Marty Griswold Associate Publisher Dan Paulus Art Director Jonathan Zwickel Senior Editor Gemma Wilson Associate Editor Amanda Manitach Visual Arts Editor The Paul Heppner President Mike Hathaway Vice President Marty Griswold One Director of Business & Community Development PLACE WHERE SNOW FALLS EVERY NIGHT Genay Genereux Accounting Sara Keats Experience the wonder of our spectacular holiday performance with toy soldier drummers, Marketing Coordinator costumed characters, exhilarating music, swirling snowflakes and glittering lights. Corporate Office 425 North 85th Street Seattle, WA 98103 p 206.443.0445 f 206.443.1246 SNOWFLAKE LANE: 7 pm, Nov. 27 – Dec. 24 CELEBRATION LANE: 7 pm, Dec. 26 – Dec. 31 [email protected] 800.308.2898 x105 www.encoremediagroup.com Learn more at snowflakelane.com Encore Arts Programs is published monthly by Encore Media Group to serve musical and theatrical events in the Puget Sound and San Francisco Bay Areas. All rights reserved. ©2015 Encore Media Group. Reproduction The Bellevue Collection without written permission is prohibited. The One and Only Snowflake Lane TBC_SFL-2015_Ad_Encore_final.indd 1 10/29/15 8:22 AM EAP full-page template.indd 1 10/29/15 4:46 PM Presented by The PLACE WHERE SNOWOne FALLS EVERY NIGHT Experience the wonder of our spectacular holiday performance with toy soldier drummers, costumed characters, exhilarating music, swirling snowflakes and glittering lights. SNOWFLAKE LANE: 7 pm, Nov. 27 – Dec. 24 CELEBRATION LANE: 7 pm, Dec. 26 – Dec. 31 Learn more at snowflakelane.com The Bellevue Collection The One and Only Snowflake Lane TBC_SFL-2015_Ad_Encore_final.indd 1 10/29/15 8:22 AM EAP full-page template.indd 1 10/29/15 4:46 PM Contents DECEMBER 2015 Nov 27–Dec 30, 2015 A Christmas Carol 13 By Charles Dickens 13 Title Page Adapted by Gregory A. Falls 14 Welcome to ACT Directed by John Langs 17 About the Play and Who’s Who 26 ACT Partners 28 ACT Board & Staff Celebrating 40 years! Photo by Chris Bennion A CHRISTMAS TREASURE: HOW IT BEGAN BY SHELLEY HENZE SCHERMER, ACT DESIGNER It was 1976 and after several years of spirits had to be made from scratch, of two reasons over the next several years. doing The Absurd Musical Revue ‘Does course, and were the most challenging. A: The stock platforms were used all year Christmas’, and some of us complaining The jolly Ghost of Christmas Present was so they had to be totally repainted for the about rehashing the same show, Greg easy: a green velvet and white “fur” robe next year’s Carol. B: Jerry Williams had [Falls] decided to change tactics and do an with hidden battery pack belt underneath convinced Phil [Schermer] to deaden the adaptation of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to power twinkle lights in his head wreath hollow sound that platforms produced to present instead. We were pleased and and magical(!) “ice” goblet. Sheet rocker by topping them with Homasote, the horrified all at once. With only the source stilts brought impressive height to the material they used for bulletin boards then, material and little time or money to create Ghost of Christmas Future, though the which was basically half inch thick paper a period show (with effects and magic clanking sound they made—and which pressboard and was soft enough that the required!) we had more of a challenge than we could not silence without causing an surface was easily damaged, resulting in we had considered when whining about industrial hazard—was a bit annoying. many annoying touchups. the Musical Revue rehashes. (We rationalized it as his clanking bones We used many props and furniture Sally Richardson and I based our …[cough]) The Ghost of Christmas Past from the storeroom. (Scrooge’s money designs on the original John Leech proved elusive (an old man/child with a box, a prop that I had made for a show illustrations. Sally, with only a few period- flame on its head?) and was “reimagined” in ‘71, and benches from Fanshen in ‘73, and vaguely period-appropriate garments for several years to come. are still in the show!). We built what we in stock from that season’s Desire Under I made use of our stock platforms and couldn’t find and invested in expensive the Elms, borrowed as much as she could supplemented one built as the required scrim material to cover flats so special and built the rest of the costumes. The pop-up grave. This proved a problem for effects would show through. We built a CONTINUED ON PAGE 7 4 ACT – A Contemporary Theatre HAMMERANDHAND.COM PORTLAND 503.232.2447 CCB#105118 SEATTLE 206.397.0558 WACL#HAMMEH1930M7 Karuna House, designed by Holst Architecture and built by Hammer & Hand 2013 AIA Portland Design Award, 2014 National Institute of Building Sciences Beyond Green Award Untitled-10 1 8/26/15 3:35 PM THE ORIGINAL SCROOGE JOHN CHEEKY GILBERT John Gilbert as Scrooge PHOTO BY CHRIS BENNION John Gilbert’s first show at ACT was In White America, the opening show of the second season in 1966. How fitting for a man who spent his life living according to his philosophy of , © Neil Mackenzie speaking out against injustice. My most vivid memories of John are of the many years spent watching him in tech rehearsals as our one- The Marriage of Figaro The Marriage mozart and-only Scrooge for many years. The original version of A Christmas THE Carol was very low tech compared to the current one and John played New Zealand Opera 2010 2010 Opera New Zealand Scrooge with a long, sharp putty MARRIAGE nose, bent posture, and raspy voice, which must have been wearing OF FIGARO on his natural soothing tone. My jan 16-30 favorite bit of business from those shows was how he transformed from MCCAW HALL old Scrooge to Scrooge as a young 206.389.7676 man in all the Fezziwig/Belle scenes SEATTLEOPERA.ORG by simply changing his posture and coat. What amazing stamina he had, doing all of the performances in those early years with two shows A DELIGHTFUL COMEDY a day, six days a week, for a month. Mozart’s most popular opera is filled with chaos With English Subtitles. and hilarity as clever servants outwit arrogant Evenings 7:30 p.m. It was fitting that he last performed masters, crafty women outsmart foolish men Sundays 2:00 p.m. Scrooge the final year it was staged folk, and one crazy day ends in happiness and Featuring the Seattle Opera at the Queen Anne ACT in 1995, love. Brighten your winter with an “engrossing, Chorus and members of Seattle astute, and unmissable” (The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. twenty years after he originated the Herald) staging of this charming favorite. role. PRODUCTION SPONSORS: ANN P. WYCKOFF, MICROSOFT –Shelley Henze Schermer 6 ACT – A Contemporary Theatre CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4 KNOW MORE. dry ice fogger, rented a smoke machine, after years sitting in tech rehearsals DO MORE. and after much experimenting thanked and spending days working in the paint heaven for the new-fangled plastic snow room behind the stage during the runs. BE MORE. we bought and recycled after sifting It, like John Gilbert’s distinctive voice out the spirit glitter and assorted gunk! for Scrooge’s dialogue, was burned into Nevermind the time the Cratchits spent my brain. It took me years after we dinner in the aftermath of a blizzard when had new Scrooges and the new score MOVEUP in Your Career with an a rope broke. was substituted to no longer hear the Advanced Degree from the College Greg hired Bob MacDougall to write originals running in my head when I of Arts and Sciences. an original score for the show. He was watched the show. an actor who had been in several shows Greg was convinced our new that season and was also cast in Carol. Christmas show would sell and we would His music was an integral part of the do it again the next year. Phil, of course, show and three musicians—on an oboe, wasn’t. Greg was right. (This created a clarinet, and violin—performed it live new problem: where to store the scenery backstage. Some of the sound effects until the next year? The perennial were also live and performed by an actor. problem of all theatres: saving scenery, The clock chimes were on sections of props, and costumes is thrifty; having metal pipes hanging from a frame and the space to do so is not. Greg offered his Marley’s entrance was accompanied storeroom. That was how A Christmas by plucking the strings of our grand Carol came to reside in The Highlands for piano off stage left. The next year, with several years.) Carol became an annual a mind on the budget, it was recorded tradition for the Seattle-area audience and became taped sound cues for the and an essential part of ACT’s annual stage manager.