Download play guide - Actors Theatre of Louisville

December 8 – 27
written by Charles Dickens
adapted by Barbara Field
directed by Sean Daniels
PLAY GUIDE
About the
A Christmas
Carol Play Guide
Table of contents
3
A Christmas Carol Fact Sheet, The Story, Main Characters
This play guide is a resource designed to
enhance your theatre experience. Its goal
is twofold: to nurture the teaching and
learning of theatre arts and to encourage
essential questions that lead to enduring
understandings of the play’s meaning and
relevance. Inside you will find:
4
Little Charlie Dickens
5
Early British Industrialization
6
Backstage Tour
7
Bridgework
8
Upcoming Opportunities
• A historical background on Charles
Dickens, the industrialization of England,
and the Victorian Era
• Fun A Christmas Carol facts from the
novel to the stage
• Activities to help your students make
personal connections to their Actors’ Theatre experience
Actors Theatre Education
After the Performance
A Christmas Carol study guides and
student matinees and study guides
address specific educational
objectives:
• Students will identify the elements of
drama in dramatic works.
Steven Rahe, Education Director
Jacob Stoebel, Education Coordinator
Jeffrey Mosser, Education Fellow
Sarah Lunnie, Literary/Education Associate
Rebecca Davis, Education Intern
Caitlin Puckett, Education Intern
Study guide compiled by Megan Alexander,
Gwen Arbaugh, and JoSelle Vanderhooft.
Graphic design by Jen Dorman.
• Students will analyze how time, place
and ideas are reflected in drama/
theatre.
• Students will explain how drama fulfills
a variety of purposes.
If you have any questions or suggestions
for improvements in our study guides,
please feel free to contact Jacob Stoebel,
Education Coordinator at (502) 584-1265
or [email protected]
Yum Brands Inc . is honored
to sponsor Actors Theatre of
Louisville’s Student Matinee
Series for the 2009-2010 season.
The Crawford
Charitable Foundation
supports Actors Theatre of
Louisville’s 2009-2010
education programs.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
FACT SHEET
DID YOU KNOW…?
n
Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was
first published on December 19, 1843. Although intended to be a potboiler, the book was even more successful than expected, selling over 6,000 copies in its first week.
The first Actors Theatre production of
A Christmas Carol was in 1976.
n
Ray Fry was the first actor to play Scrooge on Actors Theatre’s stage.
n
Actors Theatre has produced A Christmas Carol 34 years in a row, making it the
second-longest running Carol in the
United States.
n
Over half a million people have attended a performance of A Christmas Carol here at Actors Theatre.
The Story
Charles Dickens’ A Christmas
Carol tells the tale of Ebenezer
Scrooge, a man who has lost the
spirit of the holiday season.
n
There are 28 people in the 2009 A Christmas Carol cast.
n
n
n
The Cratchit family is based on Dickens’ childhood home life. He lived in poor circumstances in a “two up two down”
four-room house which he shared with his parents and five siblings.
His lack of human kindness prompts a
Christmas Eve visit from the ghost of
his dead business partner, Jacob Marley,
who warns Scrooge to change his ways
or suffer his own chain-bound fate for
eternity. To aid Scrooge in his journey of
redemption, Marley sends three spirits who
show Scrooge the mistakes of his past,
the opportunity in the present, and the
chilling promise of the future. Christmas
Day, Scrooge wakes to embrace his second
chance at life and to spread the holiday
spirit to everyone he meets.
Dickens was involved in charities and
social organizations throughout his life. At the time he wrote A Christmas Carol he was very concerned with impoverished children who turned to crime and delinquency in order to
survive.
n Dickens, as well as others,
thought that education could
provide a better life for these
children. The Ragged School
movement put these ideas
into action. The schools
provided free education for
children in the inner-city. The movement got its name
from the way the children
attending the school were
dressed. They often wore
tattered or ragged clothing.
n After A Christmas Carol,
Charles Dickens wrote several
other Christmas stories, one
each year, but none was as
successful as the original.
Main
Characters
n
n
n
n
n
n
n
n
Ebenezer Scrooge
Bob Cratchit
Jacob Marley
Ghost of Christmas Past
Ghost of Christmas Present
Ghost of Christmas Future
Fezziwig
Tiny Tim
Discussion
Scrooge goes through a huge transformation throughout the course of A Christmas Carol. How does he change along the way?
Describe Scrooge at the beginning of the play. Describe Scrooge at the end of the play. Do you see any moments in between that lead
him to this transformation?
3
Little Charlie Dickens
The fascinating events of Charles Dickens’
childhood helped to form the great writer of
novels whose work we enjoy today.
Charles was born in Portsmouth,
England, in 1812. His father, John, was
a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, while
his mother, Elizabeth Barrow, cared for
the children. Charles also had a nanny,
Mary Weller, who sparked his budding
imagination with scary stories featuring
a character named “Captain Murder,”
whose adventures left the young boy
“lying in bed rigid with terror.”
Charles also loved to read and luckily
discovered many cheap editions of
great novels like Robinson Crusoe,
which increased his appetite for
literature. During this fairly free
period in his life, Charles developed
a talent for composing funny songs
and characterizations of the people
and places he came across in his
wanderings.
Charles’ father was transferred to a
London office in 1822. There, the
boy struggled with many unpleasant
differences in the family’s situation
as they found themselves crammed
into a very small house in Camden
Town. In an effort to help the family
with their money trouble, his cousin,
James, offered to secure Charles a job
in a boot-blacking factory. His parents
accepted the offer; two days after
Charles’ twelfth birthday, he began
the most humiliating experience of his
life. After two weeks, his father was
thrown in debtors’ prison. Upon the
death of his grandmother, however,
his father received £450, enough for
him to pay his way out of prison. This
meant that Charles could finally attend
school. The eager young man attended
the Wellington House Academy, where
intellectual and social doors opened to
him for the next three years.
4
Unfortunately, family finances
soon forced Charles back to work, this
time as an office boy in a law firm. Again,
he found his work boring and so turned
his attention to acting and the object of
his affection, a banker’s daughter named
Maria. As an actor, he used his early gift
for impersonation and combined it with
written sketches of the odd characters
found in Victorian London. Charles also
took acting lessons and visited the theatre
often to improve his skills.
The day before a very important
professional audition, Charles became very
sick and never rescheduled his appointment.
Around the same time, however, he
obtained a card for the Reading Room of
the British Museum. Upon later reflection,
Dickens called this the “usefullest” time
of his life as he spent days advancing his
education on his own. Shortly after, both
The Times and True Sun offered Charles
reporter positions. Thus, he began his career
as a writer.
From his haunting experience in the bootblacking factory to his childhood imitations
and character sketches, everything
contributed to create the brilliant writer
whose Carol continues to lift our spirits
each holiday season.
Activity
What do you want to be when you grow up? Why? Do you think your current circumstances, (i.e. the town where you are growing up, your family, your friends, etc.) influence your opinion?
Early british industrialization
Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol during the Industrial Revolution, a period marked by a
rapid development of industry, that took place in England in the late 18th and early 19th centuries
and that relied upon the invention of new and improved machinery.
It began and thrived in Britain for
many reasons. British people were
hardworking and creative, they
had good roads and transportation
to transfer products from one
place to another, and being on an
island, they were far away from the
battlefields of mainland Europe.
But most importantly, their leaders
were dedicated to pursuing ways of
improving the county’s financial and
social status in the world.
Look at the shirt you are wearing.
Where do you think it came from?
Before the Industrial Revolution,
you would need ten people to spin
enough yarn for one weaver to make
the fabric for your shirt. In 1769, two
new inventions solved the problem:
the spinning jenny and the waterpowered frame, both of which sped
up the process of producing yarn. By
1800, Edmund Cartwright invented
the power loom, a machine that could
make the weaving process even faster.
Within two generations, what had once
been done at home by hand became
an industry. After 1815, handlooms
disappeared entirely and new clothmaking machines replaced them.
The steps in increasing textile
production were repeated in other
goods as well. Metals like iron and
steel were being produced in new ways.
Also, the sources of power to produce
these items changed. Creative people
were hard at work revolutionizing the
production of steam, water, and electric
power sources to keep the factories
functioning.
The new developments encouraged
urbanization and by 1850, more
than half of the population lived in
cities and worked in industry. Britain
was becoming the richest country in the
world. However with this great wealth
came a widening in the gap between social
classes. The rich became richer, and the
hardworking poor became poorer. Children
as young as five were commonly put to
work to help support their families, often in
very dangerous factory jobs. London itself
held the greatest concentration of wealth
in the world, but this only included nine
families. The rest of London’s population
was not quite as fortunate, forced to work
long hard hours for very little pay. At the
time that Dickens was writing A Christmas
Carol, new laws were just beginning to
be passed to protect workers and make
factories safer.
The streets of
19th Century
London were
crowded and
compact, dark
and dirty. Row
houses and busy
factories stood
side-by-side.
5
Shep’s World
Backstage
Tour
The Technical Side of A Christmas Carol:
An Interview with Set Designer Paul Owen
Question
Have you
always wanted
to be a set
designer?
Paul
Well, I started out as an actor and director.
I then became a designer of sets, lights, and
costumes. Once I discovered the theatre, I
found that I really like it. I’ve stuck with it
and feel it is a very important part of the
community.
Q
Where did you
work before
you came
here?
P
I worked with the Alley Theatre in
Houston, TX.
Q
What do you
think you
would be if
you weren’t a
set designer?
P
I have no idea. I can’t imagine doing
anything else.
Q
What exactly
does a set
designer do?
P
A set designer creates the environment for
plays based on the author’s intent and the
director’s interpretation. He or she provides
an environment that supports these two
elements.
Q
What are the
steps you take
to achieve
this?
P
It starts with reading the script and finding
and solving the problems first. I have to
figure out how the play’s environment can
fit into our actual space at Actors. The next
step is determining the ground plan, or
the “map,” for the course of activity in the
environment. This step requires drafting.
Then come the ideas of what it will look
like physically in the space. This involves
sketching in more detail and in color. Once
I think I am on the right track, and have all
the elements of design, I make a ¼” scale
model of the set. Using the model, I make
construction drawings and hold conferences
with the technicians. It is the job of the
technicians to build, paint, and install the
set. The final steps are to add lights, sound,
and the actors.
Q
I’ve seen a model
of one of your
sets. They are so
detailed. How do
you make those
tiny little chairs?
P
I’ve had a lot of years to practice, but it
definitely takes skill and a lot of discipline
to maintain everything in scale. I have
rulers that are marked in various scales so
that when I am drawing I can use them to
help me measure. For every one foot in real
life, it shows up as a ¼” on the model. The
rulers help me to stay consistent from the
model to the real life set.
Q
How do you keep
the set new and
exciting and keep
the audience’s
interest each year?
P
I think most of the audience that comes to
see A Christmas Carol is new each year, so
not everyone sees the same set year after
year. And sometimes when we do change
the set, the people who are returning to see
the show are disappointed because it’s not
what they remembered from when they saw
it as a child, for example. I think if people
enjoy their first experience they want to
bring their family and friends to share in
that same experience.
ACTIVITY
Be a Graphic Designer!
Create a poster or large ad for a
production of A Christmas Carol. It
must include the title of the play, the
playwright and Charles Dickens’ name,
the dates of the show(s), and address
of the theatre (or your school). Then
draw or paint an image that you think
will draw in audiences to see the show.
Remember, you are trying to express
information with your poster so make it
visible and fun.
6
writing portfolio
LITERARY WRITING
The last of the three spirits in A
Christmas Carol shows Scrooge scenes
from the future. Write a play or scene
that takes place in the future. How far
in the future will you set your play? Do
the characters in your play face new
problems or have goals different from
the goals many people have today? Do
the characters talk or move differently
from how people talk and move now?
ALSO: As you write stage directions•,
think about how setting your play in
the future might affect the sets, lights,
and costumes, etc.
• stage directions (n.): the words in
the script that are not spoken by the
actors; the words that provide clues or
suggestions about how to stage the play.
TRANSACTIVE
WRITING
Write a review of Actors Theatre’s
A Christmas Carol. Describe what it
was like to watch the play, but do not
write about only the story or plot of
the play. Think about HOW the play
tells its story. Make the experience of
watching the play come alive for your
reader by writing about several of the
play’s many elements, including sets,
lights, and costumes, as well as how the
actors performed their roles and how
the director realized her or his vision
of the play. Were there some parts of A
Christmas Carol you enjoyed more than
other parts? If so, why?
PERSONAL
WRITING
In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge’s
encounters with the three spirits change
his opinions about how he should treat
fellow human beings. Write about
someone who has changed your mind
about how you should behave with
other people. What did this person do
or say to change your point of view?
How has your thinking or behavior
changed as a result?
7
upcoming opportunities
Introducing New Voices at Walden Theatre!
Beginning this January, Actors Theatre of Louisville will partner with Walden Theatre,
Louisville’s award-winning theatre conservatory for young people, to offer a 12-session
playwriting class for young creative writers looking to gain insight and practice creating
stories for the stage. Students will write, read, share and respond to work written in and
out of class, and each student will write at least one ten-minute play. The class will also
include an insider’s look into the world renowned Humana Festival of New American Plays
at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Students will see three Humana Festival plays and have the
opportunity to meet with Humana Festival creative teams.
For more information or to enroll, please contact Walden Theatre at (502) 589-0084, or
visit www.WaldenTheatre.org
HUMANA FESTIVAL COLLEGE DAYS
March 12 - 14, 2010
Have a college student or professor in your life? College Days weekend is a three-day immersion into the world-renowned Humana
Festival. College students and faculty are invited backstage to explore this festival firsthand and connect with people at the forefront of
the field. If you know someone interested in a career in theatre, this weekend just might change his or her life.
College Days attendees will see astonishing world premiere plays, tour Actors Theatre inside and out, meet Actors Theatre staff and
the Humana Festival creative teams, participate in career development workshops with our staff, audition for our Acting Apprentice
Company or interview for a professional internship at the theatre and rub elbows with the best in the field.
Featured playwrights: Deborah Zoe Laufer, Deborah Stein, Victoria Stewart, Steve Epp, Cory Hinkle, Dominic Orlando, Dominique
Serrand, Scott Organ, Lisa Dillman, Dan O’Brien, and Kirk Lynn
Packages Only $99!
Reservations: 502-585-1210
New Voices
Ten-Minute Play
Contest
The clock is ticking. If you are a young person who fancies
yourself a playwright, now is your time to act, or better yet,
write! The deadline to enter the New Voices Ten-Minute Play
Contest is drawing near. As the clock strikes 12 midnight on
December 31, the reading will begin to determine which eight
ten-minute plays will be fully produced and performed onstage
at Actors Theatre in April. Playwrights must live in our region
and be 18 or younger. For more information about the New
Voices Ten-Minute Play Contest and the New Voices Young
Playwright’s Festival, please visit ActorsTheatre.org.
deadline: December 31
Sponsored by the Norton Foundation
8