Repertory Theatre to perform Dickens classic

By Dawson Raspuzzi Herald Staff

The jolliest holiday of the year is built around tradition, and at the Paramount Theatre in Rutland it will be no different, as the Vermont Actors’ Repertory Theatre continues its annual holiday production of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”

The story portraying the true meaning of Christmas will play out on the historic downtown stage Thursday and Friday evening, as core actors with ART and local actors carry on the four-year tradition.

“I think our feeling when we started was that we want to do something around the holiday and were hoping to create a holiday tradition for Rutland,” said Sandra Gartner, an ART production director. “We’re hoping that ‘A Christmas Carol’ becomes like ‘oh yeah, I have seen it before but it’s a holiday tradition’ and they keep coming back.”

Although Peter Marsh’s original adaptation of the Dickens’ classic, telling the story of Scrooge venturing into Christmas past, present and future, never changes, there will be many differences in this year’s production from previous years.

“For an audience who likes the show and has seen it before, they can come see how somebody does Scrooge different than the past year,” said Marsh, the assistant director. “They come knowing the story anyway, it’s not like they come to see what’s going to happen, they come to see what this particular take is on the production.”

A new cast and director will certainly put their own spin on it this year as Tom Smith is directing the holiday classic for the first time after acting the role of Scrooge the past two years.

“It’s an adaptation of what we’ve been doing and I’ve tweaked it in different ways,” said Smith, who is also a chemistry teacher at Fair Haven Union High School.

One of Smith’s ideas when taking over the directing role was to add another dimension to the play by adding a platform on one side of the stage where Scrooge’s office is in the beginning of the play and his grave later in the story.

“I thought it would be interesting to have a sense of height on the stage, it’s also a sense of power when someone is on that platform,” Smith said.

Some minor changes were happening as late as Tuesday evening, just the second time the cast was able to rehearse on the Paramount stage after moving out of a classroom setting.

“Having been here before I remembered the stage … but to sit in the theater and see different angles some things have to be adjusted,” he said.

Gartner said having seen the story retold on the Paramount stage the previous three years she’s noticed an evolution over that time.

“We’ve added some more music and a little bit more choreography this year and I think it tends to get a little brighter each year,” said Gartner, who plays the first spirit in this year’s production. “We still are very respectful of the Dickens language and focus on the social time of England at the time and the child labor laws and the poor laws, but it seems each year we get a little more brightness of the play.”

The number of narrators has also changed over the years from two to four, with this year’s number being set in the median.

The props and special effects continue to grow each year also, as the stage will transcend into a winter evening with snow descending down on the stage as characters step outside in the city and fog accompanies spirits when they enter.

The cast of 25 varies in age from 6 to 70 and is made up of many core actors with ART and some first-time actors with the company, Gartner said.

“It’s a great mix of people who have had some experience on the professional level and the community level,” she said.

One of the new cast members taking the lead role of Scrooge this year is Martin Bones, who’s recently played the parts of Alfie Doolittle in “My Fair Lady” and Dr. Scott in “The Rocky Horror Show.”

For the first of three shows the cast performed a Wednesday matinee in front of hundreds of area schoolchildren, similar to previous years. today and Friday performances begin at 8 p.m. and tickets are available at the Paramount Theatre box office ranging in price from $10-$18.

The family-oriented holiday production is a great way to get into the holiday spirit, members of the cast said.

“It appeals to generations of people because the sense of the holiday spirit, and it shows how we are on a journey together in this world and how we get through it together,” Gartner said. “It’s a story of hope; a hope people are capable of change and capable of finding the inner kindness and it says ‘I really should reach out to someone else’ and I hope that’s the spirit people take away from it.”

Contact Dawson Raspuzzi at dawson.raspuzzi@rutlandherald.com.