History of MET's A Christmas Carol

2008 marks the 5th year of MET's production of A Christmas Carol. The script we use was adapted from the book by Charles Dickens by Theatricks (a theatre company founded by Sandy Murphy and MET Associate Artistic Director Julie Herber) over 11 years ago.

Dancing at Fezziwigs!

Theatricks and then The Fun Company (another Julie Herber founded company) produced the show for about six years, performing at Frederick Community College and the Weinberg. The very first Scrooge was Tom Dougherty.

The ghost of Jacob Marley (James McGarvey) rattles his chains.

MET began producing A Christmas Carol when Julie - and The Fun Company - joined MET. Not much has changed in the past 11 years - we use the same original script from Theatricks, Julie has directed every year except one, when she was part of the cast.

The Ghost of Christmas Past (Gené Fouché) greets Scrooge (Tad Janes)

There have been cast changes, of course, but most of the people you see on stage have been doing the show for years. Tad Janes, MET's Artistic Director, has played Scrooge for the past 5 years. For many years, the part of Tiny Tim was played by Ensemble School student Karli Cole. This year the role is double cast, played by Elissa Dalimore and Lena Janes.

Scrooge (Tad Janes) and Ghost of Christmas Present (Karen Paone) watch the Cratchit family.

We've gone through several sets, most of them designed by our good friend Ira Domser. The current set was designed by Tad. We store the set, along with tubs of props and costumes, separately from the rest of our stock. We do our best to use Christmas Carol props and costumes only for that show, which makes getting ready for performances much easier!

Our fabulous set.

This year you can see A Christmas Carol in Wesminster at the Carroll County Arts Center or in Downtown Frederick at The Weinberg Center. In addition to public matinee and evening performances, the cast will also perform 5 daytime shows for school children.

Scrooge and company

Tiny Tim (Karli Cole) and Scrooge (Tad Janes). "God bless us, everyone!"