A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Adapted for the stage by Joe Taylor and Bailey Cole
Directed by Joe Taylor
November 8-10
7:30 pm
MTA
Directed by Joe Taylor
November 8-10
7:30 pm
MTA
Production Notes:
We're having our first production meeting Monday Sept. 16 at 12:30. Stay tuned for more info.
Purchases
Everyone in the Opera cast is being tapped to sing in our production. That brings the total number of girls in corsets and crinolines up to 16. We only had 4 crinolines that we made for Magic Flute to replace the 6 we made 20 years ago for Christmas Carol. I bought 12 more from Amazon. We already had a lot of corsets that I've bought a few at a time over the years, but we still needed a few more to fit the specific sizes. Corset Story was having a buy one get two free sale, so I paid for the 3 we needed and got 6 for free! Everyone in the Opera needed character shoes for The Tinker of Tivoli, so I bought them now for use in this show.
All the rest of those girls in crinolines problem
I have 15 girls in crinolines to costume. We had 4 petticoats that were made for crinolines from Magic Flute leaving me with 12 more to come up with. I pulled 3 that have survived from the first Christmas Carol and 2 of them were in very sorry shape. The 3rd is so tiny it will only fit on one cast member. So that brings the total down to 9. I scoured storage to see what else we had with enough net to pull this off. I found 12 petticoats that would work but only one of them would fit over the crinolines. The one that was big enough was from a 1970's Cotton Palace dress that was donated to me years ago. Time to get creative and start cutting the other 11 apart. We ended up making 5 more. The 5th one took 6 hours and was made from a bridal train, a knee length 1950's petticoat, and an old yellowed petticoat with no toille and only one sad ruffle. After a 14 hour day sewing, that brought my total down to 3 that we have to build from scratch.
As I showed the director in the slide show, we have lots of skirts that will fit over a crinoline. But most of them had bodices that were very clearly from a much earlier period: Tudor, Elizabethan, Cavalier, or Restoration, rather than Victorian, so luckily I always buy more fabric that we need, so it's time to dig it all back out and make Victorian bodices to go with the skirts. FYI if you're wondering "Why all the plaid?" Queen Victoria LOVED plaid so it was hugely popular during her reign. I just threw all the skirts on a mannequin and starting finding fabrics to go with them.
As I showed the director in the slide show, we have lots of skirts that will fit over a crinoline. But most of them had bodices that were very clearly from a much earlier period: Tudor, Elizabethan, Cavalier, or Restoration, rather than Victorian, so luckily I always buy more fabric that we need, so it's time to dig it all back out and make Victorian bodices to go with the skirts. FYI if you're wondering "Why all the plaid?" Queen Victoria LOVED plaid so it was hugely popular during her reign. I just threw all the skirts on a mannequin and starting finding fabrics to go with them.
Fred's Party: Mary, Miriam, and MArgaret
Fred's wife has two sisters and the party scene is small but iconic. I decided to use these three costumes from Government Inspector that were all made for the same character. In that show she dressed very flamboyantly, so I am removing most of the trim to make them a bit more understated. The actress playing Margaret is very tall, so the orange skirt with the striped overskirt's hem had to be let out all the way and we had to remove the gold ruffle and reattach it much lower. Fortunately, the dress had a 9 inch hem so that was possible.
Ghost of Christmas Present
The director, Joe Taylor, said in the production meeting that he wanted The Ghost of Christmas Present to look like, "Christmas threw up on her". I haven't had this much fun with a costumes since the "lampshade in a whorehouse" dress from Government Inspector. She'll be in a corset and crinoline and we'll be building a green petticoat with tiers of toille ruffles to go on it. I bought 6 yards of green poly and we already had the toille left over from Magic Flute. Her bodice will also be made out of leftover Magic Flute fabric. It's the wavy crushed velvet upholstery fabric. I bought 6 yards of green and red plaid from Joanne's. It's got a metallic thread woven through it and shines nicely. That will be the skirt. Joanne's also had this super cheesy chiffon with a Christmas Tree print that will probably be sleeves. I found some very elegant gold beaded trim in the cosplay section of all places, that I bought a yard of because it was $14 a yard and I already had some gold mesh in the fabric closet so that will go somewhere, maybe over the bodice. I draped it all over a mannequin to start playing around with which fabrics will go where. I'm using the red cape we built for Henry II in A Lion in Winter but I removed the black fur collar and am replacing it with the white and silver fur.
Ghost of Christmas Future
The scenic designer and Technical Director are building a Bunraku puppet for this character that will be operated by three performers. All I had to do was buy 18 yards of Halloween-y fabric for its costume.
Ghost of Christmas Past
I finally decided to make her an Empire waist dress similar to the Fezziwig party dresses, just in white with a pale green lining and matching ribbon sash for her waist and hair. I ordered pink tights and ballet slippers to go with it.
Production Photos
McLennan Theatre's Christmas Carol adds music, Dance to familiar tale
By Carl Hoover choover@wacotrib.com Nov. 20, 2019
Monitory ghost Jacob marley (Jaden Fox, right) urges former partner Ebenezer Scrooge (Colten Haliburton, left) to change his ways in McLennan Theatre's "A Christmas Carol".
Staff photo--Rod Aydelotte
Christmas decorations up before Thanksgiving or Christmas music already hitting the limit for some listeners may trigger most of this week’s “Bah! Humbug!”s, but the original — the one that Ebenezer Scrooge utters in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” — can be heard onstage at McLennan Community College.
McLennan Theatre will stage an original adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” Thursday through Saturday at the college’s Music & Theatre Arts Building theater and while it features music and dancing, it’s not a musical in the traditional sense.
“I call it ‘theater art’ — It’s not a musical, but more like a concert version of a show. If you’ve seen ‘A Christmas Carol,’ you’ve never seen it like this,” said director and assistant professor of theater Joseph Taylor.
Taylor joined the MCC theater faculty this year from Northwest Florida State College, where he developed a script, with help from colleague Anthony Borella, that expanded the college choir’s Christmas concert into stage and dance.
The MCC director and choreographer also credits Bailey Kaye Cole helping adapt “A Christmas Carol” for a cast of some 40 performers with support from McLennan Opera Workshop faculty members Sharon Lavery and Mandy Morrison.
The MCC production retells Dickens’ famous short story, in which a midnight Christmas vision transforms a miserly, holiday-humbugging Scrooge (Chandler Spivey) in 19th-century London to a generous soul warmly embracing Christmas.
There are traditional Christmas carols, a couple of repurposed opera arias (“Libiamo ne’ lieti calici” from “La Traviata” and the “Flower Duet” from Delibes’ “Lakmé”) and a bit of contemporary dance moves that season the story. “It’s almost like a hybrid version, an abbreviated version of the book,” Taylor explained.
Not abbreviated is the cast’s size with 40 actors in the production and a smaller stage to work with. “It’s been very challenging,” the director said.
Due to the MTA Building theater’s smaller size, all three performances of “A Christmas Carol” are already sold out. Those interested in attending who don’t have tickets can come early and sign a waitlist for any tickets that become available. The waitlist will be available to sign beginning at 6:45 p.m. each night and tickets that are unclaimed by 7:25 p.m. will become available for purchase.
McLennan Theatre will stage an original adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” Thursday through Saturday at the college’s Music & Theatre Arts Building theater and while it features music and dancing, it’s not a musical in the traditional sense.
“I call it ‘theater art’ — It’s not a musical, but more like a concert version of a show. If you’ve seen ‘A Christmas Carol,’ you’ve never seen it like this,” said director and assistant professor of theater Joseph Taylor.
Taylor joined the MCC theater faculty this year from Northwest Florida State College, where he developed a script, with help from colleague Anthony Borella, that expanded the college choir’s Christmas concert into stage and dance.
The MCC director and choreographer also credits Bailey Kaye Cole helping adapt “A Christmas Carol” for a cast of some 40 performers with support from McLennan Opera Workshop faculty members Sharon Lavery and Mandy Morrison.
The MCC production retells Dickens’ famous short story, in which a midnight Christmas vision transforms a miserly, holiday-humbugging Scrooge (Chandler Spivey) in 19th-century London to a generous soul warmly embracing Christmas.
There are traditional Christmas carols, a couple of repurposed opera arias (“Libiamo ne’ lieti calici” from “La Traviata” and the “Flower Duet” from Delibes’ “Lakmé”) and a bit of contemporary dance moves that season the story. “It’s almost like a hybrid version, an abbreviated version of the book,” Taylor explained.
Not abbreviated is the cast’s size with 40 actors in the production and a smaller stage to work with. “It’s been very challenging,” the director said.
Due to the MTA Building theater’s smaller size, all three performances of “A Christmas Carol” are already sold out. Those interested in attending who don’t have tickets can come early and sign a waitlist for any tickets that become available. The waitlist will be available to sign beginning at 6:45 p.m. each night and tickets that are unclaimed by 7:25 p.m. will become available for purchase.
Rich costumes set the 19th Century period in McLennan Theatre's production of "A Christmas Carol". Staff photo--Rod Aydelotte