A Christmas Carol: VSU Theatre hopes to make familiar story a new tradition

Published 5:51 pm Wednesday, December 4, 2024

VALDOSTA – Each Christmas season, Ebenezer Scrooge is again a bitter miser. Each year, he is redeemed and carries the spirit of Christmas with him in all seasons.

Readers and audiences have been attracted to Scrooge and his Christmas Eve redemption ever since Charles Dickens introduced the “bah, humbug” curmudgeon and his four ghostly visitors in 1843 with the publication of “A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas.”

The story has been retold multiple times in movies, television shows and other media ever since.

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Valdosta State University Theatre & Dance opens faculty member Ian Andersen’s adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” this week with a production he hopes will become an annual South Georgia family tradition for the holidays.

VSU Theatre & Dance has already scheduled “A Christmas Carol” for this year and next year, with Andersen directing both productions. He said the plan is other faculty members will direct it in subsequent years, adding the script is penned in a way that new directors can bring their own interpretations to the story.

“Charles Dickens wrote it as a pamphlet, as an appeal to the wealthy to help the less fortunate,” Andersen said of “A Christmas Carol’s” origins. Though set in mid-19th century London, its story and message have a timeless appeal. 

Scrooge dominates the story. Through the visitation of three Christmas spirits, the audience learns how he became a rich but bitter man. Scrooge must also confront the realities of his past, present and future.

Andersen said that’s what makes “A Christmas Carol” relevant generation after generation. Scrooge not only learns what the people he knows think and say about him but he must watch helplessly as his past self makes life-shattering mistakes. Scream all he wants at his younger self, Scrooge cannot change the past. 

Neither can audience members change their pasts.

But Scrooge and each person can change what people say of them in the days to come. We can redeem ourselves by changing our future actions.

H. Duke Guthrie plays Scrooge. The VSU Theatre faculty member played Daddy Warbucks this past summer in the Peach State Summer Theatre production of “Annie” and directed the VSU Theatre & Dance production of “Tiny Beautiful Things” this fall.

Andersen said “A Christmas Carol” features a showcase of VSU Theatre & Dance faculty and students. Other faculty members include Hank Rion as the ghostly Jacob Marley, Joe Mason as Old Fezziwig, Susan Boddie with the VSU music department as Mrs. Fezziwig, Melissa Rynn Porterfield as Mrs. Dilber. Other faculty members were scheduled to perform roles, Andersen said, but were replaced by students who had been set to play roles in the musical production of “Chicago” that was cancelled due to issues following Hurricane Helene.

Audiences can expect to find the familiar story that has entertained and enlightened all ages for decades with a new twist that VSU Theatre & Dance hopes will become a part of families’ Christmas traditions for years to come.

THE CAST: H. Duke Guthrie, Hank Rion, Joe Mason, Susan Boddie, Melissa Rynn Porterfield, Stephen Sykes, Emory Lee Davis, Bonnie Long, David Cooper, Olivia Martinez, Arrington Keyes Sanders, Carter Exum, Ryan Blaumueller, Addison Newby, Joshua Bowyer, Jon Cornwell, Rebekah Ballast, Lilian Connor, Ady Williamson, Emerson Rados, Ivy Andersen, Esther Miller, Madelyn Burk. 

DIRECTION, PRODUCTION: Ian Andersen, director; Blair Andersen, choreographer; Madison Grant, scenic designer & technical director; Katie Ludlow, lighting designer; Chalise Ludlow, costume designer; Angel G. Tirado Zepahua, sound designer; Brianna Lauser, hair & wig designer; Ally Atkinson & Mia Washington, makeup designer; Tyler Kent, puppet designer; Ella Risa Marroquin, stage manager.

Valdosta State University Theatre & Dance presents “A Christmas Carol,” 6 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 4; 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 5; 7:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 6; 1:30 p.m. & 6 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 7; 1:30 p.m. & 6 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 8, Sawyer Theatre, VSU Fine Arts Building, corner of Oak and Brookwood. Tickets, reservations, more information: Call (229) 333-5973 or visit www.valdosta.edu/comarts.