A Wicked Christmas Carol • Pit & Balcony's Delightful Mash-Up of Two Holiday Classics

As we prepare to deck our halls this holiday season, Pit & Balcony community theatre is busily pulling together finishing touches on their regional premier of A Wicked Christmas Carol, which is an ambitious, delightfully funny, and family friendly mash-up of both Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol and L.Frank Baum’s ‘Wizard of Oz’, where the classic characters from the land of Oz live out Dicken’s hauntingly beautiful and timeless tale of redemption and love.

Set for performances from Friday through Sunday, November 28-30 & December 5--7, and directed by Jessica McFarland with aid provided by Assistant Director Danessa Hellus, while this play is not the "Wizard of Oz" as we know it, patrons will meet familiar faces along the way such as Glinda, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow and Dorothy - however, the playwright Bobby Keniston, cleverly captures these characters in a setting that functions more as a prequel to Munchkin Land and all that transpired there.

“The idea had rolled around in my head for years,” says the playwright. I don't have many Christmas or other holiday plays published, and was brainstorming ideas for possibilities.  In my play, the Wicked Witch of the West serves as the Scrooge-type character, and, true to the structure of Dickens, is visited by spirits to send her on a path toward redemption.  The difference is, these spirits are all beloved characters from the Oz books. It was fun to imagine the Oz characters in different roles - for instance, naturally the Wicked Witch of the East could make a perfect Jacob Marley, only instead of bearing heavy chains, she would be laden with pieces of the house that fell on her.”

“It’s super interesting directing this production, because you can definitely tell when reading the script that the author truly loves all the stories in the Wizard of Oz series,” enthuses director Jessica McFarland. “It’s extremely heavy in the lore of the books and if you’ve seen the movie you’ll identify with the familiar ones; but there’s a lot of delightful ways he takes that and the classic Charles Dickens’ story and weaves them together.”

“I usually don’t like to recommend that actors see interpretations of the show I’m working on, so if I’m directing Steel Magnolias, I’m not going to tell my actors to go watch the film version,” she continues, “but in this case I told them to watch A Christmas Carol so they could see how those performances can influence your performance, because I’s such a blend of those two roles.  It's not a direct Christmas Carol, and it's definitely something Wizard of Oz.  Fans will really enjoy it.”

McFarland and Hellus both face numerous challenges on this ambitious production, which consists of a cast of originally 33 actors that was trimmed down to 22. “Everybody has pretty chunky roles, so there’s not a lot of small parts,” explains Jessica. “It’s a lot of bigger parts and interesting because of the gender swap with the Wicked Witch becoming Ebenezer Scrooge.  Plus it’s an extremely heavy female cast, which has been great because we have so many talented actresses. I’ve been really happy and excited to see them really get a chance to tackle this blend of such two classic stories.”

“I'm a big believer in casting,” she continues. “When you have a show and you have auditions, half of the challenge is getting the right people in the right roles. So I'm really happy with the turnout that we had for auditions. We ended up having to cut almost half of the people who came out, which is obviously really sad, but it also gave us a realy good cast to work with.”

“Once the casting's in place, it's definitely making sure that transitions move quickly and jokes land, so the pacing of the show is good because I think with any show that isn't a farce, it can run the risk of becoming really draggy. I would say the biggest focus is making sure the show stays light and  moves quickly. I also have to make sure that when I have large amounts of people on stage, they're all visible and able to be utilized.”

Given such a large cast, Danessa Hellus’ role as Assistant Director is more focused upon working with the younger actors in the cast. “We have several characters such as the Wicked Witch of the East where you have a young version and an older version, performed by two different actors.  With it being more focused on the book yet being similar to the Wicked movies coming out right now, it might not be exactly what people think it’s going to be,” she reflects.

“Even at auditions we were worried how people would know how to approach the characters, because there’s quite a bit of text; so keeping it lively and interesting and making sure the actors are  comfortable with their roles can be a bit of a challenge to keep it flowing, because we have a lot of younger people in the show.  We’re also incorporating a lot of technical elements, so there’s lots of anticipation and energy. The actors I’m working with are between the ages of 12 to 19.”

In terms of principal roles, we have Rachel Hoffman filling the shoes of the Wicked Witch of the West, who Jessica says both she and Danessa were enthusiastic about casting. “She brings such a warmth and glow to the character and because she’s such a beautiful glowing personality, I think the challenge is having her focus on that kind of nasty energy needed for scenes that don’t have happy endings that allow her to transition into what is more her natural state as a lovely kind person; but she’s truly fantastic and has such good comedic timing that I’m really excited to be working with her.

When you’re working with a character that is kind of hated like the Wicked Witch, the challenge is how do you make them lovable?  Her younger version is played by Georgie Banda, who is very sweet and kind of like a cherub, so the two actors balance themselves perfectly in this role.”

“Our Glinda is being portrayed by Stephanie Bale, who played in last season’s Carrie: The Musical, and she is simply fantastic,” continues Jessica. “There’s’ such a nice counteraction between her and Scrooge that helps us believe redemption is possible; plus we get to see her younger counterpart that frames the whole story. If you saw her performance in Carrie, Stephanie loves a juicy pause and when you can have a moment and really own it on stage, it’s an amazing thing to witness. She delivers a few of the more dramatic and emotional monologues in the show and does a truly fantastic job.”

“I think audiences are going to be full of surprises watching these performances,” concludes Jessica. “The number one thing that drew me to this production when reading the script is how people are constantly being delighted seeing these two classic stories put together in a creative and unique way, and I’m also really excited for the artists we have working on all of our design elements.”

The regional premier of ‘A Wicked Christmas Carol’ will run from December 28-30 & December 5-7^th at Pit & Balcony Theatre, 805 N. Hamilton St., Saginaw. Performances are at 7:30 PM with 3:00 PM Sunday matinees. Tickets are $20.00 and available at PitandBalconyTheatre.com or by phoning 989.754.6587.