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!"

Reiner Prochaska talks about The Snow Queen

When--in the summer of 2008--Julie Herber first asked me to write a stage adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's Snow Queen, I had to admit that I had actually never read it. Having grown up in Germany, I was thoroughly familiar with the fairy tales the Brothers Grimm had woven from centuries of central European folklore--but reading Andersen's work was a new experience. The critics seemed to agree that Snow Queen was his best and most complex work. But why?

Snow Queen combines a range of compelling themes: good, evil, love, friendship, loyalty, religion, nature, compassion, and ambition. Adapting so complex a story for an audience of children--as well as for their parents and grandparents (since children rarely come to the theater by themselves)--seemed a daunting task. I wanted to write a play that was relevant to a twenty-first-century audience. After I re-read the text several times, two prevalent themes--dichotomies, rather--that seemed to me both modern and timeless emerged: Intellect versus Emotion and Civilization versus Nature.

Both themes have been represented in literature for as long as humans have recorded their experience through the written word. We find them in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Their timelessness intrigued me. Too often, the Snow Queen is a representation of evil and wickedness. I see her as a Force of Nature, rather than a Force of Evil. When Gerda asks Grandmother whether the Snow Queen can come inside, Kai responds, "Let her try! I'd put her on the stove and she'd melt!" If we can accept the Snow Queen as a representation of nature, could Kai's comment be a modern metaphor for human interference with our environment? So, I chose to write this play as a cautionary tale about the precarious balance between Man and Nature, but also about the power of love and loyalty in the face of adversity.

Because I am also directing this production, staging it for visual impact was a big consideration for me. Since so many of the scenes take place in the vast landscapes of Scandinavia, a traditional set seemed hardly appropriate. While as an actor I love the immediacy of the stage, as a filmmaker I'm thrilled by the excitement of moving pictures. But why not combine the two? I decided to use--instead of a stage set--two large screens onto which still and video images could be rear-projected. These images will serve as set interiors as well as interactive outdoor videos. A combination of stock video clips will create the illusion of the Snow Queen's sleigh flying over glaciers and mountains and above the clouds. This past Tuesday, I traveled to Shartlesville, Pennsylvania, to tape footage from a moving horse-drawn carriage driving through a snowy forest for a scene in which Gerda is captured by a band of robbers.

Below is a short "teaser" with images from the show. Check it out. And, come see the show. I think it will be exciting for children of all ages. See you at the MET!

- Reiner Prochaska

Box Office Humor (from Joann!)

Crank Yankers: OCD Theater

Crank Yankers

OCD Theater

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Comedians on Tour

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Stand-Up Comedy

For those not familiar with this Comedy Central show, it's a show with real 'crank' phone calls to real victims. Puppets are added as the 'actors' to give visual support to what is happening in the phone calls. So yes, some poor box office guy actually had this conversation! (please don't do this to us!)

The MET Furniture Line

Since we moved into our new offices, ensemble member Mark Barnhart has been hard at work, building us our own furniture line! We call it the 'Maärk Collection':

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His first project was a bookshelf for the back hallway. Mark did the construction and staining in the scene shop, but brought the shelves into the classroom for assembly.

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Done! The shelves are completely full of books, plays and set models now.

Next Mark built some desks for our company office, they match the look of the book shelves above.
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Once the desks were done, and the A Doll's House set finished, Mark moved on to a large table for our conference room.
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It makes me nervous with all the sparks flying around!

The table was moved into the conference room yesterday, Reiner helped! First they set up the legs and base. Then they attached the table top.
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Our beautiful new conference table! We're very excited about having a dedicated space for meetings. No longer will the Board of Directors be squished into the Greene Room, or the Technology Committee be forced to meet in the lobby, with Ensemble School students working on scenes close by. Yay!
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Mark has also built a new fabulous work table and wood storage unit in the scene shop. Next time you're at the MET, ask for a tour of the Maärk Collection!

Another Christmas Carol Video

Karen says I missed one! Here's Mr. Magoo, with Tiny Tim and Razzleberry Dressing!

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens, author of A Christmas Carol, was born on February 7, 1812.

His early life began idyllically, but due to his father's imprisonment in Marshalsea Debtor's Prison, Dickens was forced at the age of twelve to leave school and work at Warren's Shoe Blacking Factory. The rest of his family moved into the prison, but Dickens was sent to live with a family friend so he could was to work.

Many of his books are based on his experiences as a child factory worker and the effects of being abandoned by his family.

Fortunately for Dickens (and us!), when his father was released, he made sure Dickens was able to return to school, saving him from a life of factory work.

As an adult, Dickens held several jobs, including working as a clerk at a law office and for a newspaper as a political journalist. His first published work for fiction was Sketches by Boz, which was published in 1836 and led to the serialization of his first novel, The Pickwick Papers.

Also in 1836, Dickens married Catherine Hogarth. They had 10 children.

Dickensian characters—especially their typically whimsical names—are among the most memorable in English literature. The likes of Ebenezer Scrooge, Fagin, Mrs Gamp, Charles Darnay, Oliver Twist, Micawber, Abel Magwitch, Samuel Pickwick, Miss Havisham, Wackford Squeers and many others are so well known and can be believed to be living a life outside the novels that their stories have been continued by other authors.

Most of Dickens's major novels were first written in monthly or weekly instalments in journals such as Master Humphrey's Clock and Household Words, later reprinted in book form. These instalments made the stories cheap, accessible and the series of regular cliff-hangers made each new episode widely anticipated. American fans even waited at the docks in New York, shouting out to the crew of an incoming ship, "Is Little Nell dead?"

Charles Dickens died on June 9, 1870. Contrary to his wish to be buried in Rochester Cathedral, he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. The inscription on his tomb reads: "He was a sympathiser to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world."

For more on Dickens, including TONS of analysis of every word he wrote, visit here.

A Christmas Carol Fast Facts

- John Leech provided eight illustrations, four woodcuts and four hand colored etchings, for the first edition of A Christmas Carol published in December 1843. This image, Mr. Fezziwig's Ball, appeared as the the frontpiece for that edition. See more illustrations here.

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- The full title is: A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas

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- A Christmas Carol was the subject of Dickens' first ever public reading, given in Birmingham Town Hall to the Industrial and Literary Institute on 27 December 1852.

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- A Christmas Carol has been made into about a million different adaptations, from musicals, movies, radio shows and TV shows. For a complete list (almost!), go here.

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- A Christmas Carol was immediately very popular, though at the time it was published it created a great religious controversy! The story's lack of babes, wise men, stars, mangers and other icons of the Christian nativity inspired a multitude of sermons and pamphlets at that time.