Emotions running high as revamped ‘Christmas Carol’ returns to damaged Venice Theatre
As the director of an original musical version of “A Christmas Carol” for the last two decades at Venice Theatre, Murray Chase has found new things in unexpected places to make the Charles Dickens story come alive and feel fresh each holiday season.
The show about Ebenezer Scrooge’s Christmas Eve transformation has been a little different each year, whether because of a slightly new approach, new stage designs that Tim Wisgerhoff introduced in 2018, or because of new cast members, even though many actors have returned year after year.
“I really do enjoy telling this story. It never gets old,” said Chase, the producing executive director of Venice Theatre.
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For this year’s 22nd annual production, Chase said he was “actually looking forward to really just shining it up. I figured we won’t have any serious COVID concerns the way it’s looking right now and we’re just able to do the show. I really was looking forward to not changing a heck of a lot.”
But this year will be like no other after Hurricane Ian destroyed the back wall and fly tower of the mainstage Jervey Theatre, where the show was to be presented. The damage, which has been covered extensively nationwide, will require millions of dollars in repairs, but “will leave us stronger than we were before” once the work is completed, Chase said. He hopes to reopen the theater in January 2024 with a delayed production of “Kinky Boots.”
Roots of original ‘Carol’
The theater commissioned the late composer and music director E. Suzan Ott and playwright and director Scott Keys to create a musical version of the familiar tale for its Theater for Young People program in 2000. Chase took over staging it the following year and has done it every year since, alongside musical director Michelle Kasanofsky.
Over the years, it has been expanded, with more songs by Keys, the late Jason Brenner and Eli Schildkraut, who grew up performing at Venice Theatre before graduating from Booker High School and moving on to the Berklee College of Music.
Since the hurricane, the Venice Theatre staff created a new, temporary performance space in the Raymond Center, an office building across the parking lot from the main theater that was briefly used as the Venice Public Library. The building was slated to become the company’s new education and outreach center for classes and student programs, which have now been scattered to several different venues around Venice.
The new space got a trial run Nov. 18-20 with a one-person version of “Hamlet.” The theater holds holds just 124 patrons (compared to more than 400 in the Jervey), and it is set up as a thrust theater, meaning the stage area thrusts out with audience members seated on three sides. In a traditional proscenium theater, audience members all face in the same direction toward the stage.
Because the building is smaller, there will be only 24 cast members this year, compared to the typical 30 to 35. Wisgerhoff has rethought the look of the show to something he and Chase described as “Our Town” meets “A Christmas Carol.”
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“It’s scaled back, with a still life that sits in the back, pieces that give you the ambiance of ‘A Christmas Carol’ with brick, stone, wood beams, wreaths, and the actors will pull those pieces out,” said Wisgerhof, the resident scenic designer. A stool that appears in Bob Cratchit’s home will be turned upside down to become a lantern in a graveyard.
Wisgerhoff said the production is a testament to the spirit of both the Dickens story and the efforts of volunteers and supporters of Venice Theatre to keep going after the hurricane.
“When the building came down, everyone said a theater isn’t a building, it’s the people in it. This is a testament to that,” Wisgerhoff said. Even the smaller cast is “reminding us that the storytelling is about people connecting. It’s about people coming together. Everything I do is just icing on the cake.”
Because of the new space, Chase said, “The acting style will have to change.” So will the stage movement. With audience members on all sides, he has to make sure actors are positioned so they can be seen in appropriate ways.
One thing that won’t change this year is the star, Brad Wages, who took over from Eric Watters as Ebenezer Scrooge in 2018.
Like the other actors, however, Wages will have to figure out “how big I can go without it being melodramatic and still get to the heart of it” because audience members will be just feet, if not inches away. But he is excited to re-explore the show.
“I love this character. Every year I find something new,” he said. And because of the thrust stage, he doesn’t have to position himself so he’s always partially facing the audience. “I can actually talk directly to the person on my right or left. It makes it more organic.”
The cast also includes Douglas Landin as Bob Cratchit, Laurie Colton as Mrs. Cratchit, Neil Kasanofsky as Fezziwig and Cora Clinch as Tiny Tim.
Over the years, the production has become an annual tradition for some families.
“I love seeing the little girls in their red velvet Christmas dresses all decked out for the theater. It makes my heart sing,” Wages said.
Chase and Wages said they know getting the show on its feet just two months after the theater building was destroyed will make it an extra emotional experience.
“This play is about redemption. It’s an affirmation of what we do,” Chase said. At a long-scheduled volunteer party on Oct. 10, just two weeks after the storm, “we sat in the parking lot and had food and got reacquainted and talked. We let folks know how we’re coming back and what we’d need to come back. And here we are, coming back with this greatest story.”
‘A Christmas Carol’
Based on the Charles Dickens novel. Book and lyrics by Scott Keys, music by E. Suzan Ott. Additional music by Scott Keys, Jason Brenner and Eli Schildkraut. Directed by Murray Chase. Dec. 2-19. Venice Theatre Raymond Center, 140 W. Tampa Ave., Venice. $26, $21 for college students and educators, $15 for youth. 941-488-1115; venicetheatre.org
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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: After Hurricane Ian, Venice Theatre rebounds for ‘A Christmas Carol’
