I started working today on A Christmas Carol at SCR, unofficially that is - my contract doesn't actually start until next Tuesday but I've got extra time on my hands so I let them know I was available if need be.
I met our director, John-David Keller, who is quite a nice man and happens to have been the director of the recurring production for the last 33 years. He and a few others, including the man who plays Scrooge, the costume designer and lighting designers have worked with the show since its debut at SCR in 1978. Can you imagine doing the same show for 33 years? It sounds like the schedule is pretty much the same each year. The director and assistant director and choreographer starts working with the child actors the first week of November. We learned one dance today and watched part of the Muppets Christmas Carol. We have two casts of young ones, 8 kids a piece, that switch between performances. They range in age from 8-17 and I know all of their names after 2 hours. The adult actors start the second week of November and rehearse up until right before Thanksgving where they get maybe 2 days off and then come back a go into previews. They preform the show every day except Mondays and twice on Saturdays and Sundays with a few extra school matinees thrown in for good measure for a total somewhere around 35(?) performances each year. If you do the math Hal Landon Jr. has stepped on stage as Ebenezer Scrooge some 1,155 times. That is quite impressive if I do say so myself.
In other news I will be home in 21 days!