AN ACTOR’S CAROL by Charles Evered
The Ivoryton Playhouse provides a fresh take on Dickens’s timeless A Christmas Carol with their production of Charles Evered’s An Actor’s Carol from December 13 -December 22.
This Christmas comedy tells the tale of Hugh Pendleton, an actor drained of artistic passion after having played the character of Scrooge one too many times, which leads to Pendleton encountering three ghosts of his own. A cast of 4 actors plays 17 different characters in this hilarious new look at a classic that reminds us that the most jaded among us can find magic in the holiday season- and in the theater as well!
Friday, December 13 at 7:30pm Saturday, December 14 at 2pm Saturday, December 14 at 7:30pm Sunday, December 15 at 2pm Wednesday, December 18 at 2pm Thursday, December 19 at 7:30pm Friday, December 20 at 7:30pm Saturday, December 21 at 2pm Saturday, December 21 at 7:30pm Sunday, December 22 at 2pm
“The Triumph of Charles Evered’s An Actor’s Carol is that it takes an old story and makes it seem new….his modernized take on Dickens’ ubiquitous holiday parable takes the Ebenezer Scrooge story out of Pre-Industrial revolution London and plops it in a squalid Playhouse where season after season of no-budget theater has been subsidized by the holiday cash cow that A Christmas Carol has become. It works, because Evered’s even handed, light hearted reinvention of the source material not only delivers Dicken’s original story of human redemption, but also adds some very relevant ideas about tolerance, including and the theater.” – Michael C. Moore, Kitsap Sun
“If A Christmas Carol restores our love of Christmas, An Actor’s Carol restores our love of Christmas AND theatre!” – Hal Linden, Tony Award-winning actor
“Shines a 21st century light on an age old tale with cleverness, wit and charm!”
– VJ Hume, CV Independent
Please call the box office at 860.767.7318 to reserve your seats.
Individual ticket prices are: $35 adult; $32 senior; $20 student; $15 child. Group price for parties of 10 or more is $30.
Tickets for Thursday, December 19th performance are $18 after 6pm (available at the box office only – limit 4 per person).
Photos by Jonathan Steele
Make our holiday show part of your family tradition. Come and visit Ivoryton with it’s display of 500,000 lights throughout the village and one of state’s largest living Christmas trees. Ivoryton is one of the most festive (and brightest!) villages in Connecticut!
MICHAEL IANNUCCI* (Hugh): Is happy to be returning to the Ivoryton Playhouse where he previously appeared in The Games Afoot and Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks. New York credits include FIDDLER ON THE ROOF (Broadway revival); ENTER LAUGHING (York Theatre); SHLEMIEL THE FIRST (Theatre for a New Audience); THE AWFUL TRUTH (Fringe Festival); WALLENBERG (NYMTF); STREET SCENE (Brave New World Rep). He toured nationally in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and Annie and appeared regionally in A CHRISTMAS CAROL (White Heron Theatre); VERONICA’S ROOM; AND THEN THERE WERE NONE; BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (Fulton Theatre); THE MOST HAPPY FELLA; CATS (Theatre Under the Stars); STEEL PIER (Actor’s Playhouse); FALSETTOLAND (Caldwell Theatre, Carbonell Award Nomination); BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS (Seven Angels); South PACIFIC (Wick Theatre); BYE BYE BIRDIE (Westchester Broadway Theatre); PATIENCE (Sorg Opera). Stock credits include TREASURE ISLAND (Maine State Music Theatre); IT SHOULDA BEEN YOU; CHICAGO (Mason Street Warehouse); LEND ME A TENOR; SPAMALOT (Arrow Rock Lyceum); TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD; ROCK OF AGES (Forestburgh Playhouse); PLAZA SUITE (Allenberry Playhouse); GUYS & DOLLS (New Harmony). Televison: Elementary. michaeliannucciactor.com
Moira O’Sullivan (Player 1) is returning to Ivoryton after being seen in Biloxi Blues, Coney Island Christmas, andIt’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play. Favorite theatre credits include: Beneath The Gavel (Off-Broadway, 59E59) and Oleanna(Playhouse on Park). BFA NYU Tisch, UCB Improv.
Alec Silberblatt (Player 2): New York: The Mon Valley Medium (Emerging Artists Theater), The Cherry Orchard (Strange Sun Theater). Regional: The Mon Valley Medium (Carnegie Stage), Bad Jews (George Street Playhouse), Biloxi Blues (Ivoryton Playhouse), World Builders and Lungs (Off the Wall Theater), The Heiress, Romeo and Juliet, Sharon’s Grave, and A Skull in Connemara (PICT Classic Theater), Driftless (Hatch Arts Collective), Chickens in the Yard (Quantum Theater), Orphans (Lake Dillon Theater Company), Rabbit Hole (Pittsburgh Public Theater and Hartford TheaterWorks). Training: CCM Acting, BFA
Lev Harvey (Player 3) is a New York based actor and is thrilled to be back at the Ivoryton Playhouse after his recent run in Shear Madness! New York credits include OFF BROADWAY: Death of a Salesman (Happy Loman-2016 Drama Desk Nominee), Twelfth Night (Feste), Winter’s Tale (Camillo), The Last Night of Ballyhoo (Joe Farkas), The Bespoke Overcoat (Al), The Constant Wife (John Middleton), and Ghosts (Oswald Alving). He was also featured on MTV’s THE SUBSTITUTE. He is a graduate of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and an active member of The Freeman Studio. Big thanks to Mom, Dad, Max, Noah, Benny, Annie and Gustavo for always being in his corner. Follow him on instagram @louielev.
Director: Sasha Bratt
Stage Manager: Holly Price
Scenic Designer: Daniel Nischan
Lighting Designer: Marcus Abbott
Sound Designer: Tate R Burmeister
Costume Designer: Lisa Bebey
* member of Actors Equity
Charles Evered took his undergraduate degree from Rutgers-Newark and an MFA from Yale University, where he studied with director George Roy Hill. Mr. Evered has won several awards for his writing including The Crawford Award, The Berrilla Kerr Award, The Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship at The Manhattan Theatre Club, The Chesterfield/Amblin Fellowship, The Edward Albee/William Flanagan Fellowship, The Bert Linder Fellowship and The Lucas Artist Fellowship at the Millay Colony.
His plays include Running Funny, (premiere at Williamstown Theatre Festival featured Paul Giamatti), Billy and Dago, (Actor’s Studio—NYC) premiere featured Scott Cohen, The Size of the World, (Yale Repertory premiere featured Liev Schreiber, Circle Repertory Company—NYC premiere featured Rita Moreno and Frank Whaley, directed by Austin Pendleton), The Shoreham, (LA premiere featured Eric Stoltz), Adopt a Sailor, (Town Hall—NYC premiere featured Sam Waterston, Eli Wallach and Neil Patrick Harris,) Celadine, (premiere featured Amy Irving) and Class, (premiere featured Thaao Penghlis and Heather Matarazzo.) His plays have been published by Broadway Play Publishing, Samuel French and Smith and Kraus among others. Additional plays include: Traces, Wilderness of Mirrors, Bridewell, Ted’s Head, Clouds Hill, Looking Again, (“Best Ten Minute Plays 2012”, Smith and Kraus) and Ten.
He has written screenplays and teleplays for studios such as Universal Pictures, NBC, DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures. His produced film and television credits include an episode of Monk entitled “Mr. Monk and the Leper” for USA Network, starring Tony Shalhoub. Mr. Evered wrote and directed the feature film Adopt a Sailor, starring Peter Coyote and Bebe Neuwirth. Adopt a Sailor was an official selection at more than twenty national and international film festivals, premiering on Showtime. In addition, he wrote and directed the short film Visiting, which premiered at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. His second feature film as a director, A Thousand Cuts, starred Michael O’Keefe and was nominated for a Saturn Award by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. It was distributed by Kino Lorber. Mr. Evered’s most recent film, Out, starred Gloria LeRoy and had its world premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival. His play, Knock, Knock, premiered in London at Theatre503 in 2014. His newest play, An Actor’s Carol, which he directed, premiered in December 2015 starring Tony winner Hal Linden and was nominated for eight Desert League Awards, winning the Bill Groves Award for “Outstanding Original Writing.”
Mr. Evered is founder of the “Charles J. Evered House,” a non profit artist residency for military veterans and those who serve in conflict zones located in the Hi Desert of Southern California, near Joshua Tree National Park. The house is named for his father, a veteran of World War II. Evered himself served in the United States Navy Reserve, reaching the rank of Lieutenant. His work has been profiled in The New York Times, BBC World and on NPR, among other outlets. In 2010 he formed a production company called Ordinance 14.
AN ACTOR’S CAROL by Charles Evered
The Ivoryton Playhouse provides a fresh take on Dickens’s timeless A Christmas Carol with their production of Charles Evered’s An Actor’s Carol from December 13 -December 22. It tells the tale of Hugh Pendleton, an actor drained of artistic passion after having played the character of Scrooge one too many times, which leads to Pendleton encountering three ghosts of his own. A cast of 4 actors plays 17 different characters in this hilarious new look at a classic that reminds us that the most jaded among us can find magic in the holiday season- and in the theater as well!
An Actor’s Carol made its premiere in 2015 in Palm Springs in a production staring Hal Linden, the Tony- and Emmy-winning actor, best known for starring on the 1970s sitcom “Barney Miller.” The play won the Outstanding Original Writing Award in the staged reading category of the Desert Theatre League Awards. The playwright, Charles Evered, an award-winning playwright and filmmaker, is a graduate of Yale School of Drama and a former naval officer. He has written screenplays for major studios and directed two features of his own. Evered also wrote for the hit TV shows Monk, starring Tony Shalhoub. Currently, he is Professor of Playwriting at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) where he served as the department’s first artistic director.
Evered says, “An Actor’s Carol is a comedy, but unlike other spoofs and satires of A Christmas Carol, it has heart and truth, particularly about theater.”
This production is directed by Sasha Bratt with set design by Dan Nischan, costumes by Lisa Bebey, and lighting by Marcus Abbott.
Michael Iannucci* will be returning to the Ivoryton Playhouse where he previously appeared in The Games Afoot and Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks, to take on the role of Hugh Pendleton/Scrooge. He will be joined by Lev Harvey, who was recently seen in Shear Madness, Alec Silberblatt* who was here for Biloxi Blues and Moira O’Sullivan who has appeared in Ivoryton in Biloxi Blues, Coney Island Christmas, and It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play.
An Actor’s Carol opens at the Ivoryton Playhouse on Friday, December 13th and runs through November December 22nd. Performance times are Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30pm and Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday at 2pm.
Tickets are $35 adult / $32 senior / $20 student / $15 children under 12 and are available by calling the Playhouse box office at 860-767-7318 or by visiting our website at www.ivorytonplayhouse.org (Group rates and subscriptions are available by calling the box office for information.)
Friday, December 13 at 7:30pm
Saturday, December 14 at 2pm
Saturday, December 14 at 7:30pm
Sunday, December 15 at 2pm
Wednesday, December 18 at 2pm
Thursday, December 19 at 7:30pm
Friday, December 20 at 7:30pm
Saturday, December 21 at 2pm
Saturday, December 21 at 7:30pm
Sunday, December 22 at 2pm
Please call the box office at 860.767.7318 to reserve your seats.
Make our holiday show part of your family tradition. Come and visit Ivoryton with it’s display of 500,000 lights throughout the village and one of state’s largest living Christmas trees. Ivoryton is one of the most festive (and brightest!) villages in Connecticut!
Photos by Jonathan Steele
Looking for something to do? Ivoryton Playhouse has been voted best place to see live theatre by readers of The Shoreline Times for three years in a row. Come to Essex and visit our historic, professional theatre – a Connecticut treasure!