In this production I wanted to see what would happen if this story was set in modern America rather than Victorian England. As a result we ended up with a production that featured a successful businesswoman rather than an elderly man. I thought it would be a great opportunity for students to experience taking a well-known traditional play and make it relate to their own lives.

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If I were to describe this production as a whole, it would be a Surreal Minimalist Christmas story. Due to my love of surrealist art, I worked with one of the art department on campus to create parts of the scenery for the set. At the beginning of the school year, I gave a number of art students the  core themes from the play, including redemption, resurrection, greed and more. Each student chose one these to work from and they were asked to paint an image based on the theme. The catch was that they could not paint anything based in realism and they could only use the colors black, gray, white and red. The results are beautiful abstract paintings that hung from the fly system as scenic elements of our set.

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I was tired of seeing actors traditionally portraying the three ghosts in the story and thought it would be great to see these spirits played as puppets. Jacob Marley, the Ghost of Christmas Past and the Ghost of Christmas Present are all puppets. However, the ghost of Christmas future is portrayed by a ballet dancer.

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This production also featured a lot of original music. Since our play has a more contemporary setting, I wanted a soundtrack to reflect that. I spent a good portion of the previous summer creating the underscore for the play. I’m a digital music geek and utilize a number of different music creation software.”

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