The REP Rings In The Season With A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Join the Resident Ensemble Players (REP) on air and online this holiday season for the brand new audio presentation of Charles Dicken's heart-warming classic A CHRISTMAS CAROL, adapted by Sara Valentine and Michael Boudewyns.

This audio production is being offered for FREE as a gift to the community from the REP. It will be available for streaming online Dec. 11th through Dec. 25th, through the Resident Ensemble Players' website www.rep.udel.edu and broadcast on WVUD 91.3 FM on Dec 11th at 7PM and Dec. 13th at 10PM.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL is a familiar and beloved story, retold to the delight of audiences year after year. The eternally damned spirit of Jacob Marley appears to Ebenezer Scrooge, warning it is not too late to escape his fate. Scrooge endures the visitations of three Spirits, confronting him with his past and present sins in the hope that Scrooge may feel remorse and change his miserly ways.

"This play is about transformation essentially," says director Kathleen Pirkl Tague, a well-known REP company member who is making her directorial debut with this production. "It's Scrooge's transformation obviously, but it's aided by supernatural energy. I think it is a miracle when people change. When people fundamentally transform, it's miraculous."

While audiences today may be familiar with film or stage adaptations of A CHRISTMAS CAROL, the story itself has a long-standing history as an audio presentation, starting with Charles Dickens giving live public readings of the original novella, and continuing in popularity with radio broadcasts in 1920s. It's fitting in a way, despite COVID-19 restrictions on public gatherings, that the REP has chosen to return to the tradition of this classic tale as an audio presentation.

The REP's production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL truly embraces the art of storytelling through the medium of sound with the incredible talent of Sound Designer Eileen Smitheimer. The design showcases the power of the human voice by using ethereal choral music to sweep the audience along the journey.

"We're supporting the sound of this production with choral music," Pirkl Tague elaborates, "because I find the human voice to be the most beautiful musical instrument. The combination of those instruments in choir is a profound kind of magical sound." Many of the featured choral pieces come from the University of Delaware Chorale's 2014 performance Carols By Candlelight, under the direction of Paul Head.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL was directed by REP company member Kathleen Pirkl Tague. The cast includes REP company members Lee Ernst as Ebenezer Scrooge, Mic Matarrese as the Narrator, Michael Gotch as Bob Cratchit, Stephen Pelinski as Jacob Marley and the Ghost of Present, Elizabeth Heflin as the Ghost of Past and Belle, René Thornton Jr. as Fred, Hassan El-Amin as Mr. Fezziwig, and Kathleen Pirkl Tague as Mrs. Cratchit, and introduces the young actors Brayden Hauser as Tiny Tim, and Ruby Matarrese as Little Fan. The sound design was created by Eileen Smitheimer.

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