Production Blog

A behind the scenes peek at rehearsals, artistic choices, artist interviews, and the daily business of running a theatre.

Director Garret Storms on the world of the Jacob Marley

Q: This script has very little to offer in terms of suggestions for staging and scenic elements, leaving much of that up to the director’s vision. What influenced you to stage this production of Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol the way that you have?

A: Much of what influenced my vision for the show stemmed from the wonderful Emily Scott Banks. She is a magical and enchanting artist and actress, and allowing her to inhabit a space that she could literally bring to life felt like the right move. We have kept things relatively simple - wooden platforms, exposed practical lights, suspended fabrics, and a odd collection of objects, all coming together to create a space that looks a bit like it has been lost to time. Something about it might resemble a cluttered old attic that hasn’t been touched in a good long while. But when inhabited by Emily, it comes to life as she creates new and imaginative functions for everyday objects. There is an element of imagination and childlike magic that permeates the production, similar to the imagination and childlike magic that tends to well up in us around this time of year - an air of possibility, of hope, of reflection as we stand in the present looking at both the past and the future. It was important to me that Emily be able to bring the space to life and allow it to breathe, making both the story and the storyteller the featured aspects of the production.

For those who saw the 2015 production at Stage West, you can anticipate many of the same elements that made that production so wonderful and well received. However, now that the Studio is in quite a different shape, there is a little something new and fresh about the production. Magic, mischief, memories, and more await you this holiday season at Stage West!

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A chat with Emily Scott Banks about the adaptation and the solo journey

Q: A Christmas Carol is probably one of the most iconic stories ever written. In taking on this script again this holiday season, what are the most exciting aspects of this adaptation of the story and also the challenges of doing a one-person show?

A: As when we first did Marley three years ago, the most exciting aspects of this show for me are still how Garret has envisioned the magical world of this production from just objects found in the attic of Stage West (on nearly no budget), and how the Narrator, a female (and I have been told by the playwright the only one to do a one-actor version so far) has her own reasons for going on this journey telling the story of these men and spirits. The meta-layers in these two elements, both personally and theatrically, I adore.

As for the challenges of doing a one-person show, well, it’s more tiring in the rehearsal process! Since there aren’t any other actors the five hours can feel like a marathon, but at full-speed. I’m so lucky, both this time and the last, to share the show with a stage manager who is also an actor – this makes it feel as if I actually have a scene partner (beyond a pocket flash light!) and one who helps tell the story in their own Behind-the-Curtain, Oz-like way. When the audience shows up, however, it always feels like we’re all kind of discovering the story together each time, so it never really feels like it’s just me – because it definitely isn’t. There’s an amazing team that’s gone into making this Marley journey magical.

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A chat with actor Shannon McGrann about the rebirth of an icon

Q: Nora Helmer may well be one of the most important characters ever written. In taking on this new incarnation of her, how do you think she is different from the original play, and how to you think that affects how A Doll’s House, Part 2 is different from A Doll’s House?

 

A: Nora in A Doll’s House, Part 2 has evolved into an individual with agency and her own means, as opposed to Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House who is merely being an extension of her domestic situation. By Part 2, she has realized she has the power to make her own choices and knows she has to and can live with the consequences of those choices, whatever they may be. 

Here we are, over 100 years later, and we’re still holding men and women to different standards, even when they make similar sacrifices, similar transgressions, and have similar aspirations. Right now, the subject of equality is one of the most talked about things in our culture. We’re talking about it more frequently and openly. 

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