Q&A: 'Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol'

TheatreSquared Reveals the 'Real Story': Scrooge Isn't the Star in Holiday Play for Families

Last updated Thursday, November 22, 2007 4:32 PM CST in Entertainment

By The Morning News

Mark Landon Smith (Scrooge): I was approached about being in the show about two months ago and was thrilled at the possibility. I hadn't been on stage in a few years, having spent my time producing and writing for Arts Live Theatre and Ceramic Cow Productions, and felt this would be the perfect show to get back on stage with.

Bryce Kemph (Jacob Marley): This type of theater (story theater) is the hardest stuff you can do. It is a great challenge, and it makes the final product worth all the work.

John T. Smith (nephew Fred, Cratchitt and Mr. Fezziwig, among others): I graduated from the University of Arkansas in 2003 with my master of fine arts in acting, and I've wanted to work for TheatreSquared since they started up. Also, I worked with Mark in graduate school, so it's really nice to get to work with him again.

Rebecca Harris (The Bogle): After doing "Bad Dates" a year and a half ago, I had been looking forward to working with TheatreSquared again. When David called to ask if I would be a part of this production, I was delighted. Also, I did "A Christmas Carol" at the UA when I was a small child, oh so many years ago, so this show is sort of a homecoming on a lot of different levels.

Q. What (and where) was your first theater experience as a viewer? As an actor?

Pickens: I was raised in a very small and isolated town. I think my first professional theater attendance was at a dinner theater 60 miles away in Shreveport, La.: Neil Simon's "Last of the Red Hot Lovers." The star was most known for a detergent commercial in which he portrayed Mr. Dirt!

Mark Landon Smith: My first experience in seeing a live production would have been the 1976 touring production of "Annie." As an actor I forced my entire second grade class to watch me in a one man production of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "The Little Drummer Boy," much to my teacher's chagrin! But I was adamant.

Kemph: My first theater experience as an actor was in the third grade, at a theater camp that my mother dragged me to, kicking and screaming. It was called "Peter Piper the Ten-Year-Old Detective," and I played Peter Piper. I was hooked.

John Smith: My first theater experience was in church plays when I was a kid. I got to sing a solo called "Germs, My Invisible Dog." However, it was a Shakespeare class I took in high school that really made me think I wanted to be a theater artist.

Harris: My first experience as an actor was playing a mushroom in "Peter Pan" at the UA. As I mentioned before, I did "A Christmas Carol" at the UA with Pat Romanov directing. I was probably 10, and we did it in a storytelling style as well. We would narrate a scene and then step in and play the parts. It was great.

Q. What special training, education, experience or passion from your life will be part of your performance?

Pickens: I have a master of fine arts in directing and have been an actor for 30-plus years. Experiencing a lot of reinvention and redirection, I embrace the message "It's never too late."

Mark Landon Smith: I have theater degrees, have spent several years as an actor/director/playwright and have an innate passion for the theater -- all of which serve me well in this production.

Kemph: My training at the UA has prepared me for almost anything that can be thrown at me. I use a dialect in this production and mavorneen dweyer's dialect classes help there! She was a great teacher.

John Smith: My master of fine arts will definitely come in to play. There's quite a bit of dialect work in the piece, so it's very challenging. The narrative nature of the piece makes it more difficult as well, since you are constantly switching from talking to the audience to being in a scene with your acting partner. Basically, the audience becomes another actor in the performance.

Harris: I suppose, my training in physical theater, a technique called The Viewpoints, that was developed by Anne Bogart and Tina Landau, will be helpful. (The students at the UA are fortunate to have another student of Anne's as the head of directing, Michael Landman.) We are creating world after world in this play just with the language and the physicality of the actors. Shawn Irish has created a beautiful playing space that is open and fluid, but it will be up to the actors to take the audience on this journey. I like that. I like the challenge that it poses.

Q. What one moment of this show will audiences never forget?

Pickens: Hopefully many, but surely the last five minutes. Three times the redemption of the original story. That's a hint.

Mark Landon Smith: Too many to count! With such an outstanding cast and production team there will, no doubt, be several!

Kemph: I am supposed to have a stroke on stage, some good stuff, so let's hope it doesn't become something they want to forget.

John Smith: There are quite a few moments I think the audience will remember -- the redemption of Scrooge definitely. There will be some fantastic lighting in the show thanks to our great designer, Shawn Irish.

Harris: I don't know. Really, I've no idea. I would be interested in finding out after we perform it a few times. I do know that Shawn has some groovy special effects up his sleeve, so look for that. The other actors are really funny, so I'm sure there will be some memorable laugh lines as well. Mark, as Scrooge, has scene where he makes the observation that Marley isn't really sitting on the chair but floating above it and he is a little disturbed by this fact. Mark's delivery is stellar.

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