bill`s notes - Arts Club Theatre Company

a christmas story,
the musical
BY JOSEPH ROBINETTE
WORDS AND MUSIC BY BENJ PASEK
AND JUSTIN PAUL
November 5 – December 27, 2015
BILL’S NOTES
SPONSORED BY
1
In 2006 the Arts Club Theatre Company produced
the play version of the 1983 film A Christmas Story
at the Granville Island Stage. The film was based on
short stories by Jean Shepherd, including “In God
We Trust: All Others Pay Cash.” When Seattle’s 5th
Avenue Theatre premiered the musical version of A
Christmas Story, I sent one of our staff members
to see it and he recommended it for us to produce.
So now, with It’s a Wonderful Life at the Granville
Island Stage, we have two seasonal shows based on iconic films playing at
our stages.
Between the two productions, we have 14 children—9 in A Christmas Story,
The Musical and 5 in It’s a Wonderful Life. Casting for both directors—
Valerie Easton and Dean Paul Gibson, with the assistance of casting director
Stephanie Hargreaves—was a treat as scores of talented young people came
out for the auditions.
Stephanie writes of the experience in casting:
“We spent over three months auditioning the children. For the first time, two
directors were in attendance —Valerie Easton and Dean Paul Gibson, as well as
musical director Danny Balkwill— and all 50 children who came in to audition
were considered for both shows. They were asked to sing, dance, and read scenes.
From this group, we narrowed down to those who would be seen at callbacks for
both A Christmas Story and It’s a Wonderful Life. They are both such classic
shows in the minds of our audiences, that we knew we needed the best. They
were all so full of life, and committed, that we knew immediately who would be
perfect for each show. We even scoped out a Billy for Billy Elliot—but that is for
a different article! And our instincts were right; they are such joyous, hardworking
children. I must single out their parents, who have been incredibly supportive in
fitting this new adventure into their own families’ schedules. Also, a good friend
of the theatre, Perry Ehrlich (who runs the well-regarded summer program Gotta
Sing! Gotta Dance!), who made many suggestions for children to audition. His
training has resulted in several alumni being featured in our upcoming shows.
I am thrilled to introduce these kids to the world of professional theatre and
welcome them to the Arts Club family.”
Bill Millerd
Artistic Managing Director
2 Bill’s Notes: A Christmas Story, The Musical
SYNOPSIS (SPOILER ALERT!)
Act I
As the play opens, it is a winter’s day
in New York City, several years ago.
The popular radio host Jean Shepherd
passes by a Salvation Army Santa
Claus ringing a bell. He deposits
a couple of bills into the donation
can before entering the WOR radio
station, where Jean begins his show.
He tells the radio audience to prepare to be taken back, to an earlier
time, 1940, and to a different place,
the small town of Hohman, Indiana, situated on the banks of Lake
Michigan. Jean suggests that he will
use the first-person ‘I’ in telling this story of a Christmas past, but that this
narratorial ‘I’ is “universal,” and in this case, refers to the character Ralphie
Parker. “So sit back, turn up the volume and let’s go,” invites the radio host.
Now it is December 1, 1940, and the setting is the Parker house on Clevland
Street in Hohman. Ralphie, a 9-year-old boy, wishes aloud for a special
Christmas gift, an item lavishly advertised in the current issue of The Open
Road for Boys magazine. He knows that Christmas is his best chance to get
his hands on this longed-for thing (yet unnamed), and so he hatches a plan
to convince his parents (“It All Comes Down to Christmas”). Meanwhile,
Ralphie’s mother tries to get him and his younger brother, Randy, and their
father (who Jean refers to as his “Old Man”) out the door to do some Christmas shopping. They pile into the car and drive to Higbee’s department store;
Jean, narrating the events as they play out, describes the corner window at
Higbee’s as “the high-water mark of the pre-Christmas season.” Various other
children name the toys that they hope to receive for Christmas. Women wish
for their children to earn good marks in school, men for raises at work (“It
All Comes Down to Christmas [Part 2]”). The children gaze in hopeful awe
at the Higbee’s shop window. Ralphie spots the object of his fantasies: an
Official Red Ryder Range Model carbine-action BB gun (“Higbee’s Window”).
He knows that the gun is all he “really needs to be a cowboy,” and dreams of
protecting the neighbourhood, saving his schoolteacher in a moment of peril,
standing up to bullies. (“Red Ryder Carbine-Action BB Gun”). Ralphie realizes, with some anxiety, that the clock is ticking on his plan to ensure that this
gift ends up under his Christmas tree: “I’ve got one shot,” he announces with
determination (“It All Comes Down to Christmas [Reprise]”).
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The next scene shifts back to the
Parker home. Ralphie’s mother calls
the children to the table for breakfast. Ralphie’s father sifts through a
stack of bills, then finds what he is
looking for: a trivia word puzzle. He
is doggedly intent upon winning a
puzzle contest, both for the monetary
prize and for the prestige that he
thinks this achievement would bring
in the eyes of his neighbours (“The
Genius on Cleveland Street”). While
Ralphie and Randy eat breakfast, a
loud boom is suddenly heard, followed by smoke billowing out of the
furnace grate. Ralphie’s father angrily
attempts to repair the malfunctioning furnace (“The Furnace Blues”).
Doubting that his father will assent
in buying him the BB gun, Ralphie
decides to try his mother. When he
tells her that he wants the gun, she
dismisses the idea because he would
“shoot his eye out” (“An Opening”).
The kids are bundled up in thick winter wear and sent off to school on very
a cold day. Along the way to school,
Ralphie and Randy talk to classmates
Flick and Schwartz. Schwartz tells the
others that if you put your tongue to
a flagpole in the winter it will stick to
it. Flick does not believe that this is
true (“The Path to School”). Randy
falls down while walking, and wrapped
tightly in his snow clothes, he is
unable to get up. As Ralphie attempts
to help his younger brother to his feet,
Scut Farkus and Grover Dill, intimidating local bullies, emerge. Farkus twists
Ralphie’s arm backward and forces
him to say ‘uncle’ (“When You’re a
Wimp”). Later, in class, Ralphie writes
4 Bill’s Notes: A Christmas Story, The Musical
a letter making his case for getting the
BB gun, hoping that his teacher, Miss
Shields, will read it and convince his
mother to assent to the coveted gift
(“What I Want for Christmas”). Ralphie daydreams about rescuing Miss
Shields in a moment of jeopardy, of
course using the BB gun to do so.
In this fantasy, the bully Farkus stands
in as Black Bart, the Red Ryder
character’s nemesis (“Ralphie to
the Rescue!”).
A week later, at the Parker house, Mrs.
Parker muses on the domestic tasks
that make up her daily routine: washing sheets, pressing pants, coaxing finicky children to eat their food (“What a
Mother Does”). Later, Ralphie resolves
that if he cannot on his own convince
his parents to buy the BB gun, he will
need the support of his schoolteacher
to help persuade them. He fantasizes
about Miss Shields writing a compelling letter to his parents, stating that
it is “absolutely necessary that he be
given a Red Ryder BB gun for the protection of your family” (“Miss Shields
Fantasy”). Meanwhile, Mr. Parker
receives a telegram notifying him that
he has won “a major award” in the
puzzle contest. The prize, as it turns
out, is a lamp shaped like a woman’s
leg. He is ecstatic and feels that his
“genius” has been validated by this
“award,” but his wife is decidedly
less impressed (“A Major Award”).
In the next scene, it is the evening of
December 13, and the Parker family
is preparing to pick out a Christmas
tree. They sing together in the car,
when suddenly one of the tires goes
flat (“Parker Family Sing-Along”). Ralphie feels proud that his mother has asked
him to help his father change the tire. He holds the hubcap for his father, but
when Mr. Parker gets up he knocks the hubcap from Ralphie’s hands and into
the snow. Feeling that he has blown this opportunity to prove himself to his
father, Ralphie impulsively swears (“Flat Tire”). His father hears him, and tells
Mrs. Parker what Ralphie has just said; Ralphie senses immediately that he
is “dead.” We next see him with a bar of soap stuffed in his mouth. Ralphie
fears that his hopes of acquiring the BB gun are now shot (“Act I Finale”).
Act II
The second act opens in the schoolyard. Schwartz dares Flick to press his
tongue against the frozen flagpole. Flick eventually accepts the dare, and
indeed, his tongue almost instantly becomes stuck to the pole. A policeman and doctor have to help Schwartz remove his tongue from the pole (“A
Sticky Situation”). Miss Shields lectures the class about having put Schwartz
up to this, and then returns the students’ papers to them. Ralphie’s letter,
wherein he had attempted to make the case for receiving the BB gun, only
received a C+. To make matters worse, Miss Shields had written a message in the postscript: “You’ll shoot your eye out!” Farkus and Dill mock
Ralphie’s mediocre mark, and the teacher’s note of caution (“You’ll Shoot
Your Eye Out”). Ralphie tries to run away from the bullies, but they trip him
as he tries to flee. They tease Ralphie for looking as if he is about to cry,
when, suddenly, Ralphie jumps at Farkus and punches him repeatedly. He
is still hitting Farkus when Ralphie’s mother appears and orders her son
to stop (“The Fight”). The other kids are impressed by Ralphie’s surprising victory over the bully. Back at home, Ralphie expects his parents to be
furious with him about the fight, but they mostly shrug it off: “Oh, you know
how boys are...,” sighs Ralphie’s mother to his father (“Just Like That”).
A scene later, it is Christmas Eve, and the Parkers are at Higbee’s department store (“At Higbee’s”). Ralphie waits in line to talk to Santa Claus, who
complains that his suit is chafing and instructs the kids to be quick because
his shift is almost over. Santa takes a drink from a flask. When Santa, hurrying Ralphie along, suggests that he might want “a nice football,” Ralphie
responds emphatically that what he wants is a Red Ryder BB gun. Santa’s
response, naturally: “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid” (“Up on Santa’s Lap”).
Back at the Parker home, the house is dark and still, when a crashing noise
breaks the silence. The leg lamp is broken, much to Mr. Parker’s horror. Mrs.
Parker bumped it over. Her husband accuses her of having been “jealous”
of his award. Offended, she admits that it was “the ugliest lamp I ever saw.”
He rushes out to find some glue to repair the lamp. Mrs. Parker also leaves;
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she tells her sons that she is going
next door to speak with the neighbour. Ralphie and Randy conspire
to try to fix the lamp before their
father returns, hoping to earn some
Christmas Eve brownie points. It
is no use, as the pieces will not fit
back together (“Before the Old Man
Comes Home”). Their father returns
with five bottles of extra-strength
glue. Their mother re-enters a moment later. She apologizes to Mr.
Parker and they make amends. Sadly,
he takes the broken lamp pieces
outside and buries them in the yard.
Later that night, Ralphie and Randy
lie awake in their bedroom. Full of
excitement for the morning ahead,
they cannot get to sleep (“The Night
Before Christmas”). Other kids,
including Dill and Schwartz, have the
same problem. They address their
insomniac prayers to Santa Claus,
reminding him that they “tried real
hard to be good this year,” while they
wonder aloud where his sleigh is
flying over at that moment (“Somewhere Hovering Over Indiana”).
Christmas morning finally arrives.
Ralphie and Randy run downstairs
toward the presents stacked beneath
the tree. Randy gets a zeppelin, his
father a bowling ball. When Ralphie
opens his gift, hoping desperately
that it will be the BB gun, he cannot
contain his disappointment to find a
pink bunny suit—a gift from his Aunt
Clara. His parents urge him to try it on
(“Christmas Morning”). As Ralphie reluctantly changes into the bunny suit,
his father, “a bona fide turkey junkie,”
6 Bill’s Notes: A Christmas Story, The Musical
steals early bites of the turkey, while
his wife scolds him for doing so. Ralphie, embarrassed by the silly outfit,
slowly emerges wearing it. His mother
fawns over how “cute” and “precious”
it looks on him, but Ralphie’s father
remarks that he looks like “a deranged
Easter bunny” and allows Ralphie to
take off the costume. He asks Ralphie if he received everything he had
wanted. “Um...almost,” mutters the
disappointed Ralphie. Ralphie’s father
then points his son toward another
gift, tucked behind the counter. It is
the Red Ryder BB gun! Ralphie wants
to try it out immediately. His mother
cautions him to be careful. Outside
the house, Ralphie takes a shot, and
we hear a pinging sound as the pellet
ricochets around before coming back
to hit Ralphie in the glasses, knocking them off his face. “Oh my God,
I shot my eye out!” laments Jean. As
Ralphie searches for his glasses, he
hears them crunch under his foot.
In order to generate sympathy from
his mother (and not confirm her
fears regarding the BB gun), Ralphie
works up tears and claims that an
icicle fell from the garage roof and
broke his glasses (“Red Ryder Carbine-Action BB Gun [Reprise 2]” /
“Ralphie to the Rescue [Reprise]”).
restaurant sings Christmas songs as the Parkers dine on duck, in lieu of turkey
(“To the Chop Suey Palace”). The Parkers reflect on their imperfect Christmas,
concluding that “it’s a giant mess / but if no one cried / or died / it’s a big success.” Ralphie is still delighted that his Christmas wish actually came true. “Who
could ask for more?” muses the Parker family in unison (“A Christmas Story”).
Moments later, “disaster descends”
upon the Parker family, as the incessantly barking dogs from next door
enter the house and eat the Christmas
dinner (“Bumpas Hounds”). Consequently, the Parkers eat their holiday
meal at a local Chinese restaurant,
the only Hohman establishment open
on Christmas day. A waiter at the
SANTA CLAUS A cranky department-store Santa, given
to complaining and drinking on the job.
CHARACTERS
JEAN SHEPHERD Radio show host, narrator.
RALPHIE PARKER A semi-autobiographical version of Jean as a 9-year-old
boy. Ralphie lives in Hohman, Indiana with his parents and brother, Randy.
MOTHER Ralphie and Randy’s mother, a homemaker.
THE OLD MAN Ralphie and Randy’s father, a puzzle contest aficionado.
RANDY Ralphie’s younger brother.
SCHWARTZ Ralphie’s classmate.
FLICK Ralphie’s classmate.
ESTHER JANE Ralphie’s classmate.
MARY BETH Ralphie’s classmate.
SCUT FARKUS The school bully, Ralphie’s nemesis.
GROVER DILL Farkus’s friend, another bully.
MISS SHIELDS Ralphie’s schoolteacher.
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ABOUT THE LYRICISTS/COMPOSERS
MUSICAL NUMBERS
Act I
Overture
Transition to 1940
It All Comes Down to Christmas (Part 1)
It All Comes Down to Christmas (Part 2)
Higbee’s Window
Red Ryder Carbine-Action BB Gun
It All Comes Down to Christmas (Reprise)
The Genius on Cleveland Street
The Furnace Blues
An Opening!
The Path to School
When You’re a Wimp
After Wimp
What I Want for Christmas
Ralphie to the Rescue!
After Ralphie to the Rescue
What a Mother Does
Miss Shields Fantasy
A Major Award
A Major Award (Playoff)
Parker Family Sing-Along
Flat Tire
Transition to the Parker House
Act I Finale
Act II
Entr’acte
Sticky Situation
After Sticky Situation
Before You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out
You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out
You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out (Playoff)
The Fight
Just Like That
Red Ryder Carbine-Action
BB Gun (Reprise)
At Higbee’s
Up on Santa’s Lap
Up on Santa’s Lap (Playoff and
Transition Back to the Parker House)
Before the Old Man Comes Home
The Night Before Christmas
Somewhere Hovering Over Indiana
Somewhere Hovering Over Indiana (Reprise)
Christmas Morning
Red Ryder Carbine-Action BB
Gun (Reprise 2) / Ralphie
to the Rescue (Reprise)
Bumpas Hounds
To the Chop Suey Palace
A Christmas Story
Bows
Exit Music
Benj Pasek and Justin Paul are a musical theatre composing team. Pasek
was born in Philadelphia in 1985. Paul was born in Westport, Connecticut in
1985. Pasek and Paul have been working in collaboration since they met while
attending the University of Michigan, where they received Bachelor of Fine
Arts degrees in Musical Theatre. In addition to A Christmas Story, The Musical,
Pasek and Paul have written the lyrics and music for Edges (2005), James and
the Giant Peach (2010), and Dogfight (2012). They have also written music for
television, including the shows Smash and Johnny and the Sprites. In 2007,
Pasek and Paul received the Jonathan Larsen Award, honouring outstanding
work by composers, lyricists, and librettists.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joseph Robinette is the author or co-author of 55 plays and musicals, including The Adventures of Peter Rabbit and His Friends, The Lion, the Witch and the
Wardrobe, Charlotte’s Web, and Anne of Green Gables. In 2013, Robinette was
nominated for a Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Valerie has worked on numerous productions for the Arts Club, including:
Red Rock Diner, Mary Poppins, Dreamgirls, High Society, Hairspray, White
Christmas, Buddy, Les Misérables, The
Producers, Company, Gypsy, Disney’s
Beauty and the Beast, Cabaret, Miss
Saigon, Evita, Jacques Brel, Singin’ in
the Rain, My Fair Lady, and West Side
Story, for which she received a Jessie
nomination. She has also worked as
Choreographer for Western Canada Theatre, Gateway, TUTS, Studio 58, and
Bard on the Beach. National credits include Sunshine Theatre, The Citadel,
University of Saskatchewan, and Neptune. Directing credits include Mack and
Mable, A Chorus Line, Tom Foolery, Joseph, Hello, Dolly!, and Cabaret (Showcase Festival), The Thing about Men (Presentation House and the Arts Club
On Tour), and Legally Blonde (TUTS).
the cast of a christmas story, the musical. photos by david cooper
8 Bill’s Notes: A Christmas Story, The Musical
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FROM RADIO AND THE PAGE, FROM SCREEN TO STAGE:
THE STORY OF A CHRISTMAS STORY
The story of small-town Indiana kid
Ralphie Parker and his Christmas
wish for a BB gun—and not just any
BB gun, of course, but an Official
Red Ryder carbine-action BB gun—
has appeared in many different
forms over the past five decades.
The narrative has changed somewhat
across its numerous iterations, but
what all versions of the (eventual) A
Christmas Story share is the genuine
pleasure and sense of warmth they
provide to audiences, particularly
around the holiday season. Even
today, the film version plays on a
24-hour loop on American cable
television beginning on Christmas
Eve, and the Broadway run of A
Christmas Story, The Musical proved
an immense success, drawing audiences eager to relive those indelible
moments from Ralphie’s childhood.
While the story of Ralphie and his
family is set in the early 1940s, A
Christmas Story itself took shape in
the mid-1960s—a point far enough
removed from the story’s setting to
have generated feelings of nostalgia
in readers and listeners yearning for
a “simpler” America. The vignettes
that would together make up A
Christmas Story, in the form(s) we
know today, are semi-auto
biographical episodes from the
early life of radio personality and
writer Jean Shepherd. The fictional
Hohman, Indiana, is a stand-in for
Hammond, Indiana, where Shepherd
was raised. Yet Shepherd, born in
10 Bill’s Notes: A Christmas Story, The Musical
Chicago in 1921, would have been
much older than Ralphie by 1940,
and the initial versions of the Ralphie
anecdotes are suitably ambiguous
regarding the precise date of their
setting. These initial versions came
from Shepherd’s book, In God We
Trust: All Others Pay Cash (1966),
although some stories had appeared
slightly earlier in the pages of Playboy
magazine or were delivered orally on
Shepherd’s New York-based WOR
radio show. The famous episode
involving Flick’s tongue becoming
stuck to the frozen flagpole debuted
this way, read aloud on Shepherd’s
radio show in 1968. A popular and
charismatic radio presence, Shepherd coloured the perspectives of
many people raised in the 1960s, including future performers. Jerry Seinfeld, for example, observes that the
radio host “really formed my entire
comedic sensibility—I learned how
to do comedy from Jean Shepherd.”
As a comic storyteller, Shepherd was
nearly peerless.
Thus, it is little surprise that the
appeal of Shepherd’s stories persisted in the years that followed.
What might today seem rather more
surprising is that the 1983 film adaptation of A Christmas Story was only
modestly successful, grossing less
than $20 million at the box-office.
The movie, directed by Bob Clark,
starring Peter Billingsley as Ralphie,
Melinda Dillon as his mother, Darren
McGavin as his father, and narrated
by Shepherd himself, received mixed reviews from critics. Released on American Thanksgiving, A Christmas Story was largely gone from theatres by Christmas. This lukewarm commercial and critical reception is a far cry from the
annual marathon screenings that the film enjoys today. On home video, the
film found a much wider audience; and its ultimate ubiquity on cable television
served to cement its status as a classic.
Certainly, the movie version of Shepherd’s stories had already achieved this
status when University of Michigan classmates Benj Pasek and Justin Paul
penned the lyrics and music for a stage version of A Christmas Story, working in
collaboration with book author Joseph Robinette. Robinette, a veteran adapter
of beloved children’s stories (The Adventures of Peter Rabbit and His Friends, The
Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Charlotte’s Web), skillfully captured the appeal
of Shepherd’s storytelling, as Pasek and Paul brought out new shades of the
Ralphie story through song. The musical debuted in 2009 at Kansas City’s Repertory Theatre before premiering on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on
November 19, 2012. This production was nominated for three Tony Awards in
2013: Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score. Based on
this success, A Christmas Story, The Musical received a limited run at the Theatre
at Madison Square Garden for the 2013 holiday season.
valin shinyei.
photo by david cooper
artsclub.com 11
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN CHRISTMAS
While for many the appeal of A
Christmas Story is that Jean Shepherd’s stories hark back to a more
“traditional,” old-fashioned Christmas, the holiday-season rituals depicted in the musical, and its earlier
incarnations, are, in fact, relatively
recent developments within modern Western culture. Though some
elements of Christmas are actually
pre-Christian in origin, the commercial Christmas, as it is celebrated today, primarily took shape in the 19th
century, long after the inauguration
of the religious holiday.
The first celebrations of Christmas
as a Christian holiday can be dated
to the fourth century, around,
or perhaps slightly before, the
Christianization of the Roman
Empire; one of the earliest extant
attestations to these celebrations
appeared in the so-called
Chronography of 354. Yet, prior
to this period, winter festivals
were perennially celebrated by
pagan groups across the empire.
These festivals, such as the widely
celebrated Saturnalia, sometimes
included customs like gift-giving
and the hanging of lights. Historians
have long speculated that the
eventual adoption of a December
date for the celebration of Christmas
was intended to replace winter
pagan festivals, as communities
across the Mediterranean, including
Europe and the Near East, gradually
“converted” to Christianity from
diverse forms of paganism. By the
12 Bill’s Notes: A Christmas Story, The Musical
early Middle Ages, the December 25
date for Christmas, and its status
as the most important date in the
Christian calendar, were largely
accepted. For instance, on Christmas
day in the year 800, in Rome,
Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish
King Charles (“Charlemagne”)
as a new “Roman” emperor. It
was certainly no coincidence that
Christmas was selected as the
optimal date for this event.
Yet, while the religious foundations
of Christmas were securely in place,
medieval Christians did not know
anything like the Christmas spectacle
we know today. Another classic
Christmas story, Charles Dickens’
A Christmas Carol, captures much
more closely the Christmas season
to which Ralphie Parker would
eventually look forward. It was in the
England of Dickens’ era, for example,
that Christmas cards, wishing family
and friends a “Merry Christmas
and Happy New Year,” came about.
Sir Henry Cole first produced such
cards in 1843—the same year that
Dickens’ novel was published.
Non-religious Christmas songs had
developed in the mid-18th century,
with “Deck the Halls” dating from
1784; “Jingle Bells” was introduced
in 1857, amidst the rapidly expanding
appetite for all things Christmas
in Victorian England. Additionally,
while some English families had
dined on turkey at Christmas as far
back as the 16th century (before
this time, peacock or boar were the
usual holiday main course), the famous Christmas dinner scene in Dickens’
novel, wherein Scrooge brings a large turkey to Bob Cratchitt’s home, served
to cement the turkey’s status as an essential Christmas staple. (Ralphie’s
turkey-loving Old Man can thank Dickens!) Meanwhile, in the 1860s the
first commercially-produced Christmas decorations became available in
Germany, where the Christmas tree (in its typical modern form) had first
appeared in the late 18th century. Soon thereafter, these festival decorations
were made available in Christmas-mad England and in the United States.
It was in the latter country, and especially in 19th- and early 20th-century New
York, that the character of Santa Claus took on the appearance that he largely
retains up to the present. The historical basis for Santa Claus was a Greek
bishop in the later Roman Empire, who lived from 270 to 340. This bishop
may have had a habit of secretly giving gifts, perhaps leaving coins in people’s
shoes. But Nikolaos of Myra, as he was then known, would hardly have cut
the figure recognizable to Ralphie in Higbee’s department store. That Santa
developed in the stories of American writer Washington Irving and the cartoons
of Thomas Nast. Irving’s account of an elfin, pipe-smoking St. Nicholas, “riding
over the tops of the trees in that...wagon wherein he brings his yearly presents
to children,” appeared in his satirical Knickerbocker’s History of New York,
published in 1809. In 1823, the anonymously published poem, “The Night Before
Christmas” (or alternately, “A Visit from St. Nicholas”), added significantly to the
developing Santa Claus mythology.
Finally, Ralphie’s expectation, that this red-robed, jolly Santa would bring
presents to him and his school-aged friends, is also very much the product of
Christmas’s modern evolution. Although the practice of gift-giving dates to
early Roman festivals, gifts were typically given to the lower social classes. The
custom of instead centering the gift-giving on children took root in the England
and US of the 19th century, where so many other aspects of modern “childhood”
(understood to be a period of play and study, free from labourious work or adult
obligations) concurrently came about. Ralphie’s Victorian forebears might have
related to parts of his whimsical Christmas story. Earlier generations of young
people would have recognized very little of the solemn religious holiday they
celebrated in Ralphie’s tale of shopping and Santa, turkey and toys.
glen gordon and valin shinyei.
photo by david cooper
artsclub.com 13
SPOTLIGHT ON: PETER AND THE STARCATCHER
Peter and the Starcatcher is a lively,
innovative, and swashbuckling prequel to
Peter Pan. Its recent, critically acclaimed
Broadway production garnered five Tony
Awards. Filled with ingenious stagecraft
and over a hundred characters (brought
to life by a dozen actors), the play is both
a rollicking adventure and a celebration
of the magic of theatre. Peter and the
Starcatcher comes to the Arts Club’s
Goldcorp Stage this November. It will be
directed by David Mackay, whose work
for the Arts Club includes: One Man, Two
Guvnors, Venus in Fur, and The Importance
of Being Earnest.
nov 26–dec 27 at the goldcorp stage
at the bmo theatre centre
The play begins when circumstance brings together a nameless orphan
boy, a young girl protecting the Queen of England’s treasure, and a crew of
murderous pirates. As the characters brave swordfights, shipwrecks, and
fantastical creatures, they discover their heroism. They also must confront
their fear of growing up. While this coming-of-age tale appeals to young
people, it includes sophisticated dialogue and pop culture references that
will delight adults. Its resourceful design elements and versatile, high-energy
performances will transport theatregoers of all ages. Come and find out why
Peter and the Starcatcher is captivating audiences. Be prepared for an utterly
original experience that will test the bounds of your imagination.
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14 Bill’s Notes: A Christmas Story, The Musical
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a christmas story,
the musical
NOVEMBER 5 – DECEMBER 27, 2015
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16 Bill’s Notes: A Christmas Story, The Musical