bill`s notes - Arts Club Theatre Company
Transcription
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]”). artsclub.com 3 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; artsclub.com 5 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. artsclub.com 7 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 artsclub.com 9 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. MY NOTES Bill’s Notes are sponsored by: Life Disability Health The most trusted provider Dental Travel 0640.002 03/12 14 Bill’s Notes: A Christmas Story, The Musical CUPE 1816 artsclub.com 15 a christmas story, the musical NOVEMBER 5 – DECEMBER 27, 2015 604.687.1644 ARTSCLUB.COM 16 Bill’s Notes: A Christmas Story, The Musical