The show must go on: After chaotic year, theaters scramble to save Christmas

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” sang Andy Williams. But while the holiday season has long been synonymous with high ticket sales and full houses in theater land, the COVID-19 pandemic has put a damper on the festive spirit this year. Nevertheless, theaters from London to New York are coming up with all kinds of ways to end the year on a happier note than it started.

The holiday season usually brings a slew of stage adaptations of “A Christmas Carol,” the Charles Dickens novella which sees elderly miser Ebenezer Scrooge encounter Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come one Christmas Eve. Stage adaptations of the tale are a veritable tradition for theaters in North America and the United Kingdom, which often use takings from these winter shows to fund other productions.

According to The New York Times, the Trinity Repertory Company theater in Providence, Rhode Island, made half of its annual sales in 2019 thanks to an adaptation of the Dickens tale. In fact, the production’s audience popularity translated into ticket revenue of some $1.7 million (around P81.5 million). Similarly, Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC, sold $2.5 million (around P119.9 million) of tickets to its stage version of “A Christmas Carol.”

But these impressive sales seem to be a Ghost of Christmas Past since the pandemic forced theaters and other venues to adapt to new public health guidelines. This year, it’s out with extravagant performances featuring huge troupes of actors and extras, and in with open-air productions, drive-in shows and live streams.

From radio plays to benefit shows

While the curtain should go up at London theaters from Dec. 2, that is not the case for all the arts venues in the United Kingdom. And across the pond, Broadway is at a standstill until further notice, as are many regional theaters across the United States.

And yet, giving up on “A Christmas Carol” is out of the question. Although it’s been closed since the end of November, Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC, is joining forces with local radio station Wamu 88.5 FM to offer a radio adaptation of the famous festive story. This free, unprecedented production will see the star actor Craig Wallace reprise the role of Scrooge for the fifth consecutive year.

For his part, Jefferson Mays is thinking big with a video version of his one-man telling of the Dickens tale, which premiered in 2018 at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. The multi-award-winning actor plays some 50 different characters under the watchful eye, and the camera lens, of American director, Michael Arden.

Theater fans will have to pay $50 (about P2,300) to enjoy this ambitious adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” in their homes (Replay video on demand until Jan. 3). Still, Mays is no real-life Scrooge, as proceeds from the show will benefit more than 60 regional theaters and venues impacted by the COVID-19 crisis.

The show must go on

American theaters are not the only ones counting on the universal appeal of one of Dickens’ best known stories to replenish their coffers at the end of this disastrous year.

London’s Old Vic theater has signed up the actor Andrew Lincoln to play mean old Scrooge in its latest staging of Jack Thorne’s adaptation of “A Christmas Carol,” based on the Dickens story. He will be joined on stage by Melissa Allan, John Dagleish and Golda Rosheuvel in a production that the theater’s artistic director, Matthew Warchus, described as “one of the most ambitious and complex pieces of live-streamed theater attempted in the pandemic so far.”

Viewers will see Thorne’s adaptation brought to life in front of their eyes by a troupe of 18 actors, an orchestra, plus costumes and lighting to equal regular productions at the Old Vic. Tickets range from £10 to 65 (approx. $13 to $87 or P640 to P4,100).

“The Old Vic’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ has moved and entertained over a quarter of a million people in London and New York over the last three Christmases, and we made a pledge last spring that we would still present it, in some form or other, even in this most challenging of years. In doing a project of this size we don’t expect to be able to make any profit for the theater but rather we will be continuing our mission of staying connected to audiences of all ages, providing much needed work and income for dozens of freelancers, and generally celebrating the important role live theater has always played in bringing us together to share amazing stories,” said Warchus in a statement.

The Old Vic is one of many British cultural institutions to benefit from a £1.57 billion ($2.1 billion or P101.1 billion) support package from Boris Johnson’s government to help the country’s culture and heritage sector in light of the pandemic. Many experts and industry professionals, like Warchus, consider the sum to be insufficient given the scale of the crisis.

Many communities in Canada and the U.S. are also staging performances of “A Christmas Carol” featuring local performers in various settings and scales, via live stream or recorded, and usually with proceeds helping out this greatly affected sector. Some have adapted the story to take place during a pandemic while others are sticking to more traditional productions. CC

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TAGS: Charles Dickens, christmas, COVID-19 pandemic, Theater