[NEohioPAL] Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol

[Janis Harcar]

‘Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol’

Serves up a Playful Twist on a Holiday Classic

Slightly Irreverent and Cleverly Funny Play

Re-Tells Charles Dickens’ Beloved Tale from a Different Point of View



Weathervane Playhouse celebrates the holiday season with a fresh twist on old classic. See the “story behind the story” with the hilarious and heart-rending Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol – presented live on stage between Nov. 29 and Dec. 22, 2012.

Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol is a comic re-imagining of Charles Dickens’ Christmas classic – told from the point of view of Jacob Marley, who was Ebenezer Scrooge’s business partner.

Four actors – three men and one woman – portray all the characters that we know and love from this perennial favorite, and a few more characters are thrown in for good measure as well.

“Marley was dead, to begin with.” These are the famous words that begin Dickens’ timeless novel, A Christmas Carol. But what happens to Scrooge’s mean, old cohort after that? This is the jumping-off point for Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol, which reveals that Marley has been condemned to a hellish eternity. He soon learns that the only way to escape his chains of damnation is to first redeem Scrooge.

Slightly irreverent, cleverly funny and deeply moving, Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol takes audiences on a highly theatrical journey of laughter and terror, with redemption and renewal as the ultimate destination.

Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol is best enjoyed by adults and children over the age of 12.

 
Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol Performance and Ticket Information

Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol plays for 10 performances on the Weathervane Playhouse Founders Theater stage between Nov. 29 and Dec. 22, 2012.

The low-cost preview performance is Thursday, Nov. 29 at 7:30 p.m. The official opening-night performance is Saturday, Dec. 1 at 7:30 p.m.

The Complete Performance Schedule

Thursday, Nov. 29 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, Dec. 1 at 7:30 p.m.

Monday, December 3 at 10 a.m.

Thursday, Dec. 6 at 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, Dec. 8 at 7:30 p.m.

Wednesday, Dec. 12 at 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, Dec. 13 at 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, Dec. 15 at 2:30 p.m.

Thursday, Dec. 20 at 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, Dec. 22 at 2:30 p.m.

Tickets for the preview performance only (Nov. 29) are $15. For performances after Nov. 29, single tickets are $21 each. Tickets for seniors and college students are $19 each, and tickets for children ages 17 and younger are $5. Additional discounts for groups of 12 or larger are also available. 

The Weathervane Playhouse Box Office is open Mondays between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., Tuesdays through Fridays between 10 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. and is also open beginning one hour before each performance. For tickets, visit or call the Weathervane Box Office at (330) 836-2626 during Box Office hours or connect online to www.weathervaneplayhouse.com.

The Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol Cast

LARRY NEHRING

BRIAN KENNETH ARMOUR

JASON BRYAN MAURER

BETHANY STAHLER
Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol Backstage Team

MICHELLE ADELINA CONNER — Stage Manager


WILLIAM MORGAN — Sound Designer


JASEN J. SMITH — Costume Designer


ALAN SCOTT FERRALL — Lighting Designer, Scenic Designer and Technical Director


KATHY KOHL — Assistant Technical Director

About the Show’s Director

LARRY NEHRING holds the dual role of director and actor for this production. He has been a regular in Northeast Ohio acting, directing, choreographing stage combat and sign interpreting at nearly every theater in the area. He is thrilled to be returning to direct his third show at Weathervane Playhouse. His first was Much Ado About Nothing in 2005 and his second was Children of a Lesser God in 2008.

About the Show’s Production History

Writer/actor TOM MULA first conceived Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol as a short novel, which was published in 1995 by Adams Media. After National Public Radio broadcast the audio version of the book for nationwide radio audiences during the Christmas season, Mula adapted his novel into a one-man show for the stage. This play version, starring Mula in all the roles, opened at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in December 1998 and was nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award (the Chicago theater community’s version of the Tony Awards). The play also received the Cunningham Prize from the Goodman School of Drama at DePaul University. The Chicago Tribune called the play “great fun, an audience pleaser filled with laughs and capped with, of course, a happy ending.” Next, Mula re-worked his play for four actors (which is the version Weathervane Playhouse is presenting). The four-man version of the play premiered at the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival in November 2001. Since then, it has received hundreds of productions nationally and worldwide, including productions in South Africa and Australia.

About the Playwright
TOM MULA has for the past 30 years worked in the Chicago area as an award-winning actor, director, playwright, makeup artist and winner of the Joseph Jefferson Award (“The Jeff”) for The Golem and Sylvia's Real Good Advice. 

Some of Mr. Mula's acting credits include The Hot Mikado at Drury Lane Theatre, for which he received an After Dark Award and a Joseph Jefferson Award; Lawrence in Christine Thatcher's Emma's Child; the Fool in King Lear; Richard III, Caliban, Bottom, Feste, Malvolio, and Prospero; another award-winning solo turn in The Circus Of Dr. Lao; and seven seasons (over 400 performances) as the Goodman Theatre's Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. His directing credits include Jeff nominations for Porch and A Life, and the world premiere of Larry Shue's last play, Wenceslas Square, in Chicago and at the Queens' Festival in Belfast. 


Mula was Artistic Director of the Oak Park Festival Theatre for seven years, directing or appearing in As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, Richard III, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and his own adaptations of Dr. Faustus and Henry IV (parts I and 2), titled Falstaff. Mula has spent 15 summers at Peninsula Players in Door County Wisconsin, where he has directed productions of Amadeus, The Lion in Winter, Red Herring and Greetings, among others. He has appeared there in Cabaret, The Cherry Orchard, Art and far too many farces.


Mr. Mula holds a B.F.A. degree from the University of Illinois and has taught in the theater department at Columbia College in Chicago for more than 20 years, most of them as an artist-in-residence. There, he has directed Tartuffe and co-directed Ragtime, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet with Sheldon Patinkin.

Source of this biographical sketch: http://www.colum.edu/Academics/Theater/faculty/thomas-mula.php

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Weathervane Playhouse and its dedicated volunteers offer vital performing arts resources for the people of Northeastern Ohio. We create exciting and thought-provoking shows with impressive production values. Through educational programs and volunteer opportunities for people of all ages and backgrounds, Weathervane serves the theater community, our patrons and our volunteers. 

The Ohio Arts Council helped fund this program with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, education excellence and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans.

Weathervane Playhouse’s 2012-2013 Season Support Provided by:

Akron Community Foundation

89.7 WSKU-FM

Kenneth L. Calhoun Charitable Trust (KeyBank, Trustee)

OMNOVA Solutions Foundation

Mary S. and David C. Corbin Foundation

Sisler McFawn Foundation

The Ohio Arts Council
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