Tonight you will be visited by the Animal Hat Gang...

On Friday I got a phone call asking if I'd mind playing a few roles for Theatre Memphis' annual production of A Christmas Carol: Shopkeeper, Lamplighter, Partygoer, and possibly Fezziwig, pending arrangements for the weekend before Christmas (I'd already bought tickets to Wicked in St. Louis). Rehearsals are in the afternoon (so that children don't interrupt ongoing productions, I'd wager) so I'm having to come in to work early to make 4:30 call times. Last night was the first meeting/rehearsal, and DAMN there are a lot of children in the production.

At the meeting, the director went around the room and asked the children what Christmas meant to them, and couldn't manage to get anybody in a room of 50 kids to say "Jesus," just so he could say that while Christmas is ostensibly about Jesus (with exposition about pagan winter festivals, Saturnalia, and so on), A Christmas Carol wasn't about Jesus, but instead about love for your fellow man. And Scrooge. (He failed to mention that A Christmas Carol is really about generating $150,000 gross income for the theatre, but really, who can blame him?)

This afternoon, we start with the blocking.



p.s Is Fezziwig supposed to be Irish?

EDIT: New show means new British Empire facial hair! Pictures once it grows in!