Press Release: A Christmas Carol

Great Lakes Theater Festival’s Production of A Christmas Carol Celebrates 20th Anniversary

November 12, 2008
A new Ebenezer Scrooge and a reunion of A Christmas Carol’s original artistic team headline this season’s production.

CLEVELAND, OH - The stage of the Ohio Theatre, PlayhouseSquare will glow with good spirits and time-honored tradition when Great Lakes Theater Festival (GLTF) presents its twentieth anniversary production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, running November 28 through December 23, 2008. The production has delighted more than 500,000 people in its history, making it one of Northeast Ohio’s most-loved and best-attended holiday events.

Great Lakes Theater Festival’s forty-seventh season is sponsored by National City with additional generous support from The Cleveland Foundation, Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, the Ohio Arts Council and SCK. A Christmas Carol’s media sponsor is Soft Rock 102.1 F.M. WDOK. GLTF’s Season Media Sponsors are Cleveland Scene, Cleveland Magazine, The Plain Dealer, WCLV 104.9 F.M., WCPN 90.3 F.M. ideastream and WKSU 89.7 F.M.

Director Victoria Bussert will stage former artistic director Gerald Freedman’s heartwarming adaptation of this classic tale. GLTF’s production features a multi-generational cast of twenty-five actors, singers and dancers. New this season, the company will be led by longtime Festival company member Aled Davies in the role of miserly Ebenezer Scrooge. Aled is only the fourth actor to assume the role of Scrooge in the production’s twenty-year history.

In celebration of A Christmas Carol’s twentieth anniversary, the Festival will reunite many members of the production’s original creative team including Gerald Freedman, who originally adapted and directed the inaugural production twenty years ago. Freedman will collaborate with his long-time artistic partner Victoria Bussert on the staging of this season’s production. Joining Freedman and Bussert will be Mary Jo Dondlinger, the production’s original lighting designer, and David Shimotakahara, A Christmas Carol’s original choreographer.

GLTF Producing Artistic Director Charles Fee remarked, “With this much talent in the room, this year’s A Christmas Carol promises to be as fresh as ever, and filled with the spirit of the season! The combination of Gerald Freedman’s inspired and moving adaptation, Victoria Bussert’s dynamic gifts as a director, our remarkable design team and our talented cast are sure to delight audiences, whether they’re attending for the first time or returning to experience this holiday tradition again with friends and family.”

“It’s exciting for us as a company of artists to revisit this great classic story on the occasion of its twentieth anniversary, and the opportunity to collaborate once again with Gerald Freedman is absolutely wonderful,” said Victoria Bussert, who will stage the twentieth anniversary production. “We are blessed with an immensely talented cast and a wonderful adaptation that we simply can’t wait to share.”

Freedman’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol is presented as a story within a story. The fictitious Cleaveland family gathers in its Victorian-era parlor on Christmas Eve to read Mr. Dickens’ book. As Mrs. Cleaveland reads the story to her family, her youngest child, Master William, reimagines familiar faces as characters in the story: the Cleaveland’s crotchety manservant becomes Scrooge; Father becomes Bob Cratchit; Mother becomes Belle, and the Cleaveland children become the Cratchits, with Master William becoming the beloved Tiny Tim. In all, more than 60 Dickens characters are brought to life on stage.

The Festival’s production incorporates theatrical special effects to retain a strong sense of the supernatural, emphasizing the novel’s origins in folk tales and myth. Designers for the GLTF production blend exceptional stagecraft with dramatic effects that evoke the magical and mysterious aspects of a classic ghost story.

Great Lakes Theater Festival’s twentieth anniversary production of A Christmas Carol commences on Friday, November 28th at 7:30 p.m. Curtain times for all evening performances will remain at 7:30 p.m., with a 1:30 p.m. curtain time for Saturday matinees and a 3:00 p.m. curtain time for Sunday matinees. An audio-described performance is scheduled for Sunday, November 30th at 3:00 p.m. A sign-interpreted performance is scheduled for Sunday, December 7th at 3:00 p.m.

Single tickets for Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of A Christmas Carol range in price from $28-$59 (Student tickets $28 – any performance/any seat) and are available by calling (216) 241-6000, by ordering online or by visiting the PlayhouseSquare Ticket Office. Groups of ten or more receive discounts and should call (216) 664-6050 x1 to make reservations.

Since 1962, Great Lakes Theater Festival has brought the pleasure, power and relevance of classic theater to the widest possible audience in Northern Ohio. The first resident company of PlayhouseSquare, Great Lakes Theater Festival has called the Theatre District home since 1982.

Reviews: A Christmas Carol

Plain Dealer
December 2, 2008
Great Lakes Theater Festival resurrects and revives A Christmas Carol for a smashing 20th anniversary gift for Cleveland
Tony Brown

Tradition is a good thing. So is change.

So began my review, one year and six days ago, of Great Lakes Theater Festival’s 19th annual production of former artistic director Gerald Freedman’s literate, honest adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, a timeless, uplifting ghost story.

I praised the adaptation. But I also complained that it was “time for re-engineering” in time for this year’s 20th anniversary production at PlayhouseSquare’s Ohio Theatre because “some of its trappings look dated, its choreography performed by rote.”

This year, thankfully, I can write something different.

Great Lakes has resurrected A Christmas Carol. And it has done so with changes that leave unaltered its greatest existing assets: its unafraid portrayal of poverty, and its special effects and brilliant costumes.

A Christmas Carol, restored to a more nearly perfect iteration of past self, this year richly deserves its title as Cleveland’s most popular holiday play. Chief among the improvements: bringing back director Victoria Bussert and casting a new Scrooge, Aled Davies.

The playbill continues to say the production is adapted and directed by Gerald Freedman, who did attend some early rehearsals this year. Freedman did in fact direct the show in its first year. Since then, Great Lakes has brought in new (or at least recycled) directing blood nearly every Yuletide to re-stage it.

But for the past four years, associate artistic director Andrew May has directed every time around. May is a fine director, but using any director so many consecutive times on such an old and often-viewed piece is begging for staleness, which is happily averted this year.

Bussert, who assisted Freedman in the very first staging, puts her musical theater chops to fine use here (in collaboration with original choreographer David Shimotakahara) to breathe new energy and zest into this play with music, and in particular the haunting beauty of the miners-seafarers scene.

As for the re-Scrooge-ification: Dudley Swetland, who played the role for 12 years, is a gifted comic actor (most recently on display this fall as the Porter in Macbeth), but he had run out of ideas for freshening his rather manic miser in Carol.

Now comes Davies, one of the smartest and most stately members of Great Lakes’ acting ensemble, who brings a richer diversity of emotions to his Scrooge, and is utterly convincing in his transmutation.

Other highlights include Scott Plate’s cheery Bob Cratchit, Malika Petty’s Fan, D.A. Smith’s boisterous Christmas Present, Phil Caroll’s dashing Nephew Fred and Jackie Cummins as Mrs. Cratchit.

Change is a good thing. So is tradition.

Photos: A Christmas Carol

Actor Aled Davies stars as the new Ebenezer Scrooge in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s twentieth anniversary production of Charles Dickens’ holiday classic “A Christmas Carol” at the Ohio Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The production runs through December 23. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)

Actor Aled Davies stars as the new Ebenezer Scrooge in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s twentieth anniversary production of Charles Dickens’ holiday classic “A Christmas Carol” at the Ohio Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The production runs through December 23. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)

Lynn Robert Berg takes center stage as the Ghost of Jacob Marley in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s twentieth anniversary production of Charles Dickens’ holiday classic “A Christmas Carol” at the Ohio Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The production runs through December 23. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)

Bob Cratchit (actor Scott Plate) lifts Tiny Tim (actor Cameron Danielle Nelson) high into the air as the rest of the Cratchit family watches on in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s twentieth anniversary production of Charles Dickens’ holiday classic “A Christmas Carol” at the Ohio Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The production runs through December 23. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)

The Ghost of Jacob Marley (actor Lynn Robert Berg) warns Ebenezer Scrooge (actor Aled Davies) to change his ways in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s twentieth anniversary production of Charles Dickens’ holiday classic “A Christmas Carol” at the Ohio Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The production runs through December 23. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)

Mr. Fezziwig (actor Darryl Lewis, center) makes merry with his party guests in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s twentieth anniversary production of Charles Dickens’ holiday classic “A Christmas Carol” at the Ohio Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The production runs through December 23. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)

The Ghost of Christmas Past (actor Matt Lillo, center back) introduces Ebenezer Scrooge (actor Aled Davies, left) to his younger self (actor Phil Carroll, couple right) in an embrace with Belle (actor Laura Welsh Berg, couple right), the love of his life, in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s twentieth anniversary production of Charles Dickens’ holiday classic “A Christmas Carol” at the Ohio Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The production runs through December 23. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)

The Ghost of Christmas Present (actor David Anthony Smith, above) looms over Ignorance (actor Meghan Kelley, left) and Want (actor Rebecca Oet, right) in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s twentieth anniversary production of Charles Dickens’ holiday classic “A Christmas Carol” at the Ohio Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The production runs through December 23. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)

The Cleaveland family celebrates the holiday season by enjoying Charles Dickens’ classic “A Christmas Carol”, as read by Mother Cleaveland (actor Laura Perrotta, center) in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s twentieth anniversary production of Charles Dickens’ holiday classic by the same name at the Ohio Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The production runs through December 23. The children from left to right are actors Aaron James Howell, Tim Try, Meghan Kelley, Malika Petty, Cameron Danielle Nelson and Callie Shea Sulllivan. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)

Great Lakes Theater Festival rings in the holiday season with its twentieth anniversary production of Charles Dickens’ holiday classic “A Christmas Carol” at the Ohio Theatre, PlayhouseSquare. The production runs through December 23. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)