Santaland Diaries First Read Thru

On Wednesday, November 5th we had the first read thru of The Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris. As usual, we had a potluck dinner first, then settled into the theatre to listen to the script.

The production team, plus a few others: Sarah Shulman (ASM), Mak Nichols, Suzanne Beal (Director), Karina Wright (Stage manager), Joann Lee (Set designer), Tom Majarov (sound designer) and Sarah Straw.

.

The Santaland Diaries premiered on November 7, 1996 at the Atlantic Theatre Company in New York City. MET has produced this show once before, in 2004 (our first Christmas in our current space) with Kevin Corbett as the elf.

.

Santaland director, Suzanne Beal, talks about the show.

.

The playwright, David Sedaris, was discovered reading his diary (which he has kept since 1977) in a Chicago club by radio host Ira Glass, who asked Sedaris to appear on his weekly local program The Wild Room. Sedaris's success on The Wild Room led to his National Public Radio debut on December 23, 1992, when he read a radio essay titled "SantaLand Diaries", which described his experiences working as an elf at Macy's department store during Christmastime in New York. "SantaLand Diaries" was an immediate success with radio listeners, and launched Sedaris's career as a writer, playwright and comedian.

.

Santaland is a one person show, and MET's version features ensemble member Rona Mensah. Rona basically has to memorize a 30 page monologue!