WELL KNOWN (AND LESSER KNOWN) FACTS FROM 29 YEARS OF A CHRISTMAS CAROL

by Madeline Porter

As A Christmas Carol approaches its 30th anniversary, Orange County’s favorite (and longest-running) holiday show has delighted audiences just under 1,000 times. That comes to approximately 450,000 people whose holiday fare has included A Christmas Carol. In honor of this milestone, we’ve compiled some historical tidbits:

Key Players

• SCR Founding Artists have appeared a total of 133 seasons: Hal Landon Jr. – 29, Art Koustik – 28, Richard Doyle – 25, Don Took – 22, Martha McFarland – 21, Ron Boussom – 8. Hal, Richard and Art will all be back this season.
• Director John-David Keller has staged the show every season. Of course, he’ll be back for the 30th.
• The original set was designed by Cliff Faulkner, with costumes by Richard Odle. The set has evolved over time, with the current design by Tom Buderwitz. Donna and Tom Ruzika have designed the lighting every season.
• Hal has missed only three shows. In 1997, he was cast in a pivotal role in Sidney Bechet Killed a Man, which didn’t close until Sunday, November 30. Hal stepped back into the role of Scrooge on December 2, missing one matinee and two evening previews. Director John-David Keller went on for him, and those who were there say he did a bang-up job. (No one demanded a refund!)
• Speaking of missing things, Hal missed one “hat trick” (when Scrooge—finally displaying the Christmas spirit—turns a somersault on the bed and comes up wearing his top hat). He stopped the show long enough to try again—and succeed.
• Richard Doyle has played The Spirit of Christmas Past too many times to count. He guesses 20. At one time or another, he has also played Solicitor, Joe, Mr. Fezziwig and Scrooge’s nephew, Fred.

Long-time members of A Christmas Carol cast (l. to r.) Don Took, John-David Keller, Hal Landon Jr., Martha McFarland, Richard Doyle, Art Koustik and Howard Shangraw.

Accidents and Near-Misses

• Don Took had a near-striptease exit once during his 22-year run as the Ghost of Jacob Marley. When the stage crew wheeled him out the window (for his ghostly disappearance), his rotting shroud caught on the window latch. The crew rightly chose to save the set, leaving Don gyrating and screaming on the platform while his costume peeled away from his arm and down his torso until crew members managed to rip the material loose and close the window. It was the longest exit in history, which Don still wishes he had seen.
• Art Koustik missed only one season, because of a motorcycle accident that left him incapacitated for the entire run and longer, but he bounced back and hasn’t missed a performance since.
• Hal’s battle scars include two broken toes—the little toe on his left foot four years ago when (in stocking feet) he ran into furniture backstage, the little toe on his right foot the next year when he ran into the foot of Scrooge’s bed.

Hal Landon Jr. and Richard Doyle.

All in the Family

• Hal's youngest daughter, Caroline, joined the cast in 1996-97 as Young Girl About Town.
• Richard Doyle never portrayed Bob Crachit. But he married one of Bob’s wives (the actress Jennifer Parsons, who has played Mrs. Cratchit since 2004). By the way, Richard’s daughter, Sarah, also joined her father onstage in 1996 as Martha Cratchit.
• Howard Shangraw appeared the first season as Young Ebenezer and later (as he grew older) as Scrooge’s nephew Fred, a role he played through 2006. Other adult roles that have necessitated cast changes as the actors grew up are Fred’s wife, Sally, and Young Eb’s sweetheart, Belle. Hisa Takakuwa and Richard Soto played Sally and Young Eb for over a decade, and although they never got together on the stage, they were married in real life last year.
• Those Cratchits (Bob and “Mrs.”) are characters whom actors can play from their 20s into their 40s. Three actors have had very successful and long-running stints as Bob Cratchit—John Ellington from the first season until 1998, when he left the acting profession to become a minister; David Whalen took over for four years; and since then, Bob has been played by SCR stalwart Daniel Blinkoff.

Director/actor John-David Keller and Martha McFarland.

Casting Children

• Children from SCR’s Theatre Conservatory audition each November for eight coveted roles, including the young Cratchits—Belinda, Peter, Martha and Tiny Tim—as well as Boy on the Street, known affectionately as “Turkey Boy” because he’s singled out by Scrooge to deliver the Christmas turkey, and the Christmas joy.
• The children are double cast (eight kids on the “red” team and eight on the “green team”), alternating shows so they can share other holiday events with their families. These sixteen young actors audition for their roles after completing at least one year of actor training in the Theatre Conservatory.
• Because the child actors change every year, the old-timers find great joy in helping them adapt during early rehearsals. It’s not unusual for a girl’s bloomers to come loose and fall around her legs during the dance scene at the Fezziwig’s party. Her first inclination is to run—blushing—offstage, but John-David and the cast are there to urge, “Pick them up, dear, just pick them up.”
• The children’s parents often spread cheer by supplying the cast with baked goods, a generous gesture that can add an extra 10 pounds during the run.
• From their “half hour” call until their parents take them home after the show, the kids are never alone backstage. SCR supplies a fun-loving staff member with the western-sounding title of “wrangler” to serve as baby-sitter, friend, mentor and sounding board. SCR Theatre Conservatory grad Lisa Ackerman has “wrangled” for the past four years, and knows the territory well, having also played Martha Cratchit as a child.

Art Koustik and Madison Dunaway.

Welcome to the Party

• The young actors made the party scenes a real joy for Art Koustik during his years playing Fezziwig, and he continues to have a great time during the “scavenger” scene in which he and the other old-timers ad-lib and then watch new cast members try to adjust. The scene is not Shakespeare, he has to remind them, but something near the other end of the acting spectrum!
• Thousands of stories have been written about SCR’s production of A Christmas Carol, but the first behind-the-scenes “blog” entry ran in the Orange County Register last season, when actor Louis Lotorto joined the cast and reported his experiences, beginning on November 18 with a phone call offering him the role of Fred and ending with the first audience on November 24. Louis will be back this season. He’s only the fourth actor to play Fred.

Christmas in July

• And, oh, yes, lest we forget—former SCR Dramaturg Jerry Patch adapted the Charles Dickens story for the stage. Even though he’s now at New York’s Manhattan Theatre Club, we expect he’ll be back to have a look at the 30th production. Jerry wrote the script one summer in July, getting up at 5 a.m. to work on it while his kids were still asleep. That was an especially difficult task given that he had to conjure up mid-winter London while sitting in a mostly glassed-in room half a mile from the water in Huntington Beach.

We’ll update these facts throughout the run, if you’ll add stories about your own family’s experiences at A Christmas Carol. Just email us at theatre@scr.org.

Watch Hal Landon Jr. and John-David Keller discuss the "Hat Trick."

Watch A Christmas Carol slideshow.

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