Scrooge, Tiny Tim and other iconic characters of "A Christmas Carol" come alive this weekend for Silvermoon Children's Theatre performances of the beloved play based on a Charles Dickens classic.
Silvermoon's first performance was Thursday night. They continue tonight at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and then Sunday at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.
Susannah Morriss Linnett directs her young thespians-and her not-so-young father-for this production that celebrates the Christmas spirit.
"I love the classics. I think that they are fabulous," Linnett said. "This play, we toyed with the idea of putting it in a different time period." It could've been a western or set in the modern day; they could have put a woman in the Scrooge role.
"But when I really thought about it, I wanted to do it true," Linnett said. "And the reason is because kids need to see the classics." She wants them to share her excitement about the classics. She sees that as part of their job with SCT.
"To have them think about those things, why we're here. Why do we have Christmas in the first place? 'A Christmas Carol.' Because Charles Dickens wrote this story about how the spirit of Christmas lives and how we need to act and treat our fellow men," she said. "And so how am I going to make it fresh and new? It's bringing it to the kids."
In all, she has 27 on stage, including the main Scrooge. That makes 26 youmgsters in all. The inclusion of an older actor, too, helps the younger ones learn from a seasoned actor. In addition, two Texarkana Repertory Co. veterans, Michael Skotnik and Alex Rain, came to rehearsal to work with the young actors.
Her father, Josh Morriss III, wants to humanize the complexity of Scrooge in his performance. It's an emotional role.
"Scrooge is not just a two-dimensional character. He bounces all over the place he starts off enraged at what's around him. He goes to abject horror at what lies before him with the ghosts and his future. And then, joy. He bounces all over the place," Morriss said.
And because Scrooge was told, as a child, to be responsible, he was so to a fault and drove away the love of his life, Morriss said. Scrooge's sister, also beloved, died in childbirth. Her son is his sole living relative.
"It's just full of rich stuff," Morriss said. "It's not just this old story that we've all seen and heard for millions of years."
This complexity rests in the script, which is based on the original Dickens language in his novella. "It's masterful. The words are just rich and in the right order," he said. If you get inside the language, it works, he believes.
This is his first time with a SCT show under the direction of Linnett. He describes her direction as fabulous, gentle and kind. "This is his first children's theater role," his daughter said.
She said the words are a challenge for her young actors. It's Dickens English, after all. "We get the meat of the story and stay with the true English, how it's written in the book," Linnett said. The kids, though, have stepped it up to get it right.
To see the SCT cast bring this timeless classic to life, visit Silvermoon tonight, Saturday or Sunday.
(Admission: $10. Get tickets at SilvermoonKids.com. Silvermoon on Broad is located at 217 W. Broad St. in Texarkana, Texas.)