We could all use a laugh during the holidays, right?
Enjoy.
ME: I can't believe this is real.
THEM: I'll show you photos.
ME: When was this?
THEM: This would have been--2011? 2012?
ME: A truly great year for Christmas.
THEM: Clearly.
ME: Who decided to do a A Christmas Carol?
THEM: The board. The board wanted a show that would make money. Plain and simple.
ME: Christmas Carol is such a scam.
THEM: It definitely is.
ME: I mean, I will go see it every year and I still want to play Fred, but it's such a shameless money grab at this point.
THEM: Especially when the theater that's doing it is an avante garde theater.
ME: So it was one of those times where the artistic staff is like--Oh, we'll do the show you want us to do, but we're going to do it the way we want and pretty much subvert everything in it?
THEM: Bingo.
ME: I am so sad I didn't see this.
THEM: If you could crawl into my nightmares, it still pops up every year around this time.
ME: Who were you in the company at that point?
THEM: Just an actor. So I--I played one of the ghosts.
ME: Which one?
THEM: Christmas Present.
ME: Great role.
THEM: It...It can be.
ME: Okay, first thing's first--this is an avante garde group in a pretty, uh, major American city--doing A Christmas Carol.
THEM: Correct.
ME: What was the first sign that things were going to go horribly wrong?
THEM: Well, we cast--as Scrooge--this actor who didn't believe in scripts.
ME: I'm sorry--what?
THEM: Whenever we cast him in anything, he just refused to learn any text whatsoever, which, normally wasn't a big deal, because we created all our own work, so we would just, you know, work around it, but in this case, we were like--You need to learn lines. Actual lines. And he was like 'No, I refuse' and the director, who was also the Artistic Director, was like--'Let's just see what happens.'
ME: Oh wow.
THEM: I don't think he ever read the script. I don't think either of them did. I don't know if anyone aside from, like, three of us did.
ME: The designers?
THEM: Oh no. They made us do it in a butcher shop.
ME: What?
THEM: They found this butcher shop and asked if we could do it there so it could be site specific.
ME: But A Christmas Carol doesn't take place in a butcher shop so how could it be--
THEM: In this version, Scrooge was a very successful butcher. I kid you not.
ME: And was there real meat?
THEM: Yup. We spent a fortune buying all the meat from the shop. I think we were the best customer they ever had.
ME: Is that why they let you do it in there?
THEM: That and I think the butcher was the dad of the woman playing Mrs. Crachit.
ME: Aren't there zoning laws about doing theater around raw meat?
THEM: I'm sure there are.
ME: So Scrooge won't learn his lines and he's a butcher?
THEM: Of both lines and meat.
ME: A butcher in every way.
THEM: In every way.
ME: What were rehearsals like?
THEM: The first thing we did was throw out the entire story. The director wanted Bob Crachit to be complicit with Scrooge in his, uh, you know, swindling.
ME: What?
THEM: Yeah.
ME: So there are two Scrooges and Bob is one of them?
THEM: But Bob feels bad about it and that's why he kills himself.
ME: Excuse me?
THEM: He kills himself and then comes back to haunt Scrooge. There was no Marley.
ME: But then who--wait, when would he kill himself?
THEM: Right at the top of the show, we had this dummy hanging--
ME: No.
THEM: Oh yes. And the Narrator comes out and goes--'Poor Bob Crachit hung himself. Hung himself. Hung himself.'
ME: Why the repetition?
THEM: Kevin, we'll be here all night if I have to--
ME: So then who's taking care of Tiny Tim?
THEM: There was no Tiny Tim.
ME: You didn't have a Tiny Tim?
THEM: In our version, Fred has a limp and so he sort of became Tiny Tim. But he was also institutionalized.
ME: Fred was?
THEM: Yeah, and Scrooge wouldn't go visit him.
ME: This can't be real.
THEM: I have the photos.
ME: Were there reviews?
THEM: We never made it that far.
ME: How many performances did you do?
THEM: We did two before we had to shut down. Nobody was buying tickets.
ME: See, I would think everybody would be buying tickets.
THEM: I think if word had gotten out that it was THAT bad, they would have, but instead it was like 'It's not good.' We were not not good. We were the stuff of legend.
ME: What was it like with Scrooge not learning lines?
THEM: He would just...respond to people. I'd come on as the Ghost of Christmas Present and say my first line, which was--I don't even know what it was--but I'd say 'I'm the Ghost of Christmas Present' and he'd go 'You smell so f#$&-ing good.'
ME: WHAT?
THEM: He was a huge creep. Everything was about sex with him.
ME: So he would hit on you? Onstage?
THEM: He hit on me. He hit on Mary the maid.
ME: The maid's name is Mary?
THEM: Our director was really into Jekyll and Hyde, so he was like--What if they had the same maid?
ME: What if Scrooge and Dr. Jekyll had the same maid?
THEM: He kept saying it was an Easter egg, and I'd say--
ME and THEM: That's not what an Easter egg is.
THEM: At some point, you just stop fighting and you're like 'Sure, Scrooge's maid moonlights for Dr. Jekyll. Why not? I'm over here cutting up pork chops.'
ME: And there are no Crachits?
THEM: No, but somehow, even with all that stuff cut out, the show was so long.
ME: Why?
THEM: I think it's because Scrooge would just--talk. He would just say whatever came to his mind, and he would go on and on.
ME: About what?
THEM: He would talk about his Christmases as a child.
ME: Like at the school for boys?
THEM: No, not the character's childhood Christmases. His personal childhood Christmases.
ME: So he would step out of character?
THEM: All the time.
ME: Was he supposed to?
THEM: You're talking as though he was supposed to do any of the stuff he was doing.
ME: Did you have Fezziwig?
THEM: We had a party that I guess would be considered Fezziwig's, but it was really just a big orgy scene.
ME: In the butcher shop?
THEM: Yes.
ME: With the exposed meat everywhere?
THEM: Scrooge, at one point, hit on Young Scrooge, because he didn't know who Young Scrooge was. We kept losing people and Scrooge wasn't very, uh, attentive, so he never knew who was playing who, and he would just talk to whoever was onstage at the time.
ME: Why didn't you quit?
THEM: The money was so good, Kevin.
ME: Where did they get MONEY from?
THEM: [Name of City] loved them. They were the town darlings.
ME: Of course.
THEM: I got paid very well.
ME: Did he at least become a good person at the end?
THEM: At the end, he would just start cooking meat. We had a little--like a campfire stove set up, and he would just start cooking and eating all the meat--talking about how hungry he was. He said it was all about hunger. He and the director came up with that.
ME: But did he change?
THEM: Uhhhhh, everything was very symbolic. There was symbolic change.
ME: I am so mad I didn't see this. I know I keep saying it, but--
THEM: They forbid us from taking a video.
ME: That's tragic.
THEM: We only had a few audiences, but I remember, during the first preview, this woman got up and said 'It smells like meat in here. I'm going to be sick.' Then she went outside and we could hear her puking, and it was during the orgy scene, so there's this sound of puking and then people are naked and there's meat everywhere. It was unlike anything I've ever seen.
ME: Were you in the orgy scene?
THEM: No, at that point, I was backstage--and backstage was the freezer. The meat freezer.
ME: They had you in the freezer?
THEM: There were two freezers. One of them worked, one didn't. We were in the one that didn't, but sometimes the door would close and it would be hard to open.
ME: Like Cherry on Punky Brewster.
THEM: I used to think of that. It was pretty scary.
ME: So it wasn't cold in there?
THEM: No, but it smelled really bad.
ME: Who has two freezers?
THEM: I always thought the butcher shop was a front for the mob, but I never said anything.
ME: Did the other actors complain?
THEM: They were all very much on the same page as the artistic staff. They thought they were making this really cool statement.
ME: What was the statement?
THEM: That greed and capitalism are like meat and--I have no idea.
ME: Like the pigs? Maybe something to do with the pigs?
THEM: Maybe. There was an oven and at the end we used to shove Scrooge into the oven. Into the real oven.
ME: You did not.
THEM: I mean, it was off, but it was still an oven.
ME: How did nobody stop this?
THEM: Nobody stops anything unless someone reports you, and I think--I think everyone was like 'If they're doing it, it must be safe. They must have done their homework.'
ME: Meanwhile, you're shoving an actor into an oven.
THEM: He screamed the whole time. Every curse word in the book. 'YOU MOTHERF*$&ERS! I'LL GET YOU MOTHERF#$&%S.' Don't forget, we still had kids in the audience. People thought this was okay to bring kids to because it's A Christmas Carol.
ME: Oh my god.
THEM: Oh yeah. If they were lucky, their parents got them out of there before Scrooge tried making out with Bob the Ghost.
ME: No!
THEM: He used to play with his chains. It was--I'm shaking my head, but you have to remember, a lot of these people were called geniuses by the community.
ME: Never call anyone a genius.
THEM: They had free reign--in their minds.
ME: Was there music?
THEM: Oh right, you want me to talk about the---
ME: Yeah, I'm not great at prompting.
THEM: It was Slipknot and, uh, not Metallica, but--it was a local band like Metallica. We used all their music.
ME: I guess that's appropriate in a butcher shop.
THEM: It was so loud. We got noise complaints.
ME: Was any part of this show not atrocious?
THEM: Um, our Fred was really good. He was--he is a great actor. I haven't seen him in awhile, but he was excellent. He would spit and, like, claw at himself in all the asylum scenes, and then when Scrooge would come to get him and, um, I don't know, set him free, he would really cry every night. He should be in a movie. He was that good.
ME: Is the company that did this show still around?
THEM: No, they merged with another group and now they only do musicals.
ME: I have to see one of these musicals.
THEM: I think they did Jesus Christ Superstar, but it looked pretty tame. I don't think any of the same people are still there.
ME: That's a shame.
THEM: I know, right? I would love to see Jesus Christ hacking up a sirloin.
Them has only been in A Christmas Carol once--if you can call it that.
Enjoy.
ME: I can't believe this is real.
THEM: I'll show you photos.
ME: When was this?
THEM: This would have been--2011? 2012?
ME: A truly great year for Christmas.
THEM: Clearly.
ME: Who decided to do a A Christmas Carol?
THEM: The board. The board wanted a show that would make money. Plain and simple.
ME: Christmas Carol is such a scam.
THEM: It definitely is.
ME: I mean, I will go see it every year and I still want to play Fred, but it's such a shameless money grab at this point.
THEM: Especially when the theater that's doing it is an avante garde theater.
ME: So it was one of those times where the artistic staff is like--Oh, we'll do the show you want us to do, but we're going to do it the way we want and pretty much subvert everything in it?
THEM: Bingo.
ME: I am so sad I didn't see this.
THEM: If you could crawl into my nightmares, it still pops up every year around this time.
ME: Who were you in the company at that point?
THEM: Just an actor. So I--I played one of the ghosts.
ME: Which one?
THEM: Christmas Present.
ME: Great role.
THEM: It...It can be.
ME: Okay, first thing's first--this is an avante garde group in a pretty, uh, major American city--doing A Christmas Carol.
THEM: Correct.
ME: What was the first sign that things were going to go horribly wrong?
THEM: Well, we cast--as Scrooge--this actor who didn't believe in scripts.
ME: I'm sorry--what?
THEM: Whenever we cast him in anything, he just refused to learn any text whatsoever, which, normally wasn't a big deal, because we created all our own work, so we would just, you know, work around it, but in this case, we were like--You need to learn lines. Actual lines. And he was like 'No, I refuse' and the director, who was also the Artistic Director, was like--'Let's just see what happens.'
ME: Oh wow.
THEM: I don't think he ever read the script. I don't think either of them did. I don't know if anyone aside from, like, three of us did.
ME: The designers?
THEM: Oh no. They made us do it in a butcher shop.
ME: What?
THEM: They found this butcher shop and asked if we could do it there so it could be site specific.
ME: But A Christmas Carol doesn't take place in a butcher shop so how could it be--
THEM: In this version, Scrooge was a very successful butcher. I kid you not.
ME: And was there real meat?
THEM: Yup. We spent a fortune buying all the meat from the shop. I think we were the best customer they ever had.
ME: Is that why they let you do it in there?
THEM: That and I think the butcher was the dad of the woman playing Mrs. Crachit.
ME: Aren't there zoning laws about doing theater around raw meat?
THEM: I'm sure there are.
ME: So Scrooge won't learn his lines and he's a butcher?
THEM: Of both lines and meat.
ME: A butcher in every way.
THEM: In every way.
ME: What were rehearsals like?
THEM: The first thing we did was throw out the entire story. The director wanted Bob Crachit to be complicit with Scrooge in his, uh, you know, swindling.
ME: What?
THEM: Yeah.
ME: So there are two Scrooges and Bob is one of them?
THEM: But Bob feels bad about it and that's why he kills himself.
ME: Excuse me?
THEM: He kills himself and then comes back to haunt Scrooge. There was no Marley.
ME: But then who--wait, when would he kill himself?
THEM: Right at the top of the show, we had this dummy hanging--
ME: No.
THEM: Oh yes. And the Narrator comes out and goes--'Poor Bob Crachit hung himself. Hung himself. Hung himself.'
ME: Why the repetition?
THEM: Kevin, we'll be here all night if I have to--
ME: So then who's taking care of Tiny Tim?
THEM: There was no Tiny Tim.
ME: You didn't have a Tiny Tim?
THEM: In our version, Fred has a limp and so he sort of became Tiny Tim. But he was also institutionalized.
ME: Fred was?
THEM: Yeah, and Scrooge wouldn't go visit him.
ME: This can't be real.
THEM: I have the photos.
ME: Were there reviews?
THEM: We never made it that far.
ME: How many performances did you do?
THEM: We did two before we had to shut down. Nobody was buying tickets.
ME: See, I would think everybody would be buying tickets.
THEM: I think if word had gotten out that it was THAT bad, they would have, but instead it was like 'It's not good.' We were not not good. We were the stuff of legend.
ME: What was it like with Scrooge not learning lines?
THEM: He would just...respond to people. I'd come on as the Ghost of Christmas Present and say my first line, which was--I don't even know what it was--but I'd say 'I'm the Ghost of Christmas Present' and he'd go 'You smell so f#$&-ing good.'
ME: WHAT?
THEM: He was a huge creep. Everything was about sex with him.
ME: So he would hit on you? Onstage?
THEM: He hit on me. He hit on Mary the maid.
ME: The maid's name is Mary?
THEM: Our director was really into Jekyll and Hyde, so he was like--What if they had the same maid?
ME: What if Scrooge and Dr. Jekyll had the same maid?
THEM: He kept saying it was an Easter egg, and I'd say--
ME and THEM: That's not what an Easter egg is.
THEM: At some point, you just stop fighting and you're like 'Sure, Scrooge's maid moonlights for Dr. Jekyll. Why not? I'm over here cutting up pork chops.'
ME: And there are no Crachits?
THEM: No, but somehow, even with all that stuff cut out, the show was so long.
ME: Why?
THEM: I think it's because Scrooge would just--talk. He would just say whatever came to his mind, and he would go on and on.
ME: About what?
THEM: He would talk about his Christmases as a child.
ME: Like at the school for boys?
THEM: No, not the character's childhood Christmases. His personal childhood Christmases.
ME: So he would step out of character?
THEM: All the time.
ME: Was he supposed to?
THEM: You're talking as though he was supposed to do any of the stuff he was doing.
ME: Did you have Fezziwig?
THEM: We had a party that I guess would be considered Fezziwig's, but it was really just a big orgy scene.
ME: In the butcher shop?
THEM: Yes.
ME: With the exposed meat everywhere?
THEM: Scrooge, at one point, hit on Young Scrooge, because he didn't know who Young Scrooge was. We kept losing people and Scrooge wasn't very, uh, attentive, so he never knew who was playing who, and he would just talk to whoever was onstage at the time.
ME: Why didn't you quit?
THEM: The money was so good, Kevin.
ME: Where did they get MONEY from?
THEM: [Name of City] loved them. They were the town darlings.
ME: Of course.
THEM: I got paid very well.
ME: Did he at least become a good person at the end?
THEM: At the end, he would just start cooking meat. We had a little--like a campfire stove set up, and he would just start cooking and eating all the meat--talking about how hungry he was. He said it was all about hunger. He and the director came up with that.
ME: But did he change?
THEM: Uhhhhh, everything was very symbolic. There was symbolic change.
ME: I am so mad I didn't see this. I know I keep saying it, but--
THEM: They forbid us from taking a video.
ME: That's tragic.
THEM: We only had a few audiences, but I remember, during the first preview, this woman got up and said 'It smells like meat in here. I'm going to be sick.' Then she went outside and we could hear her puking, and it was during the orgy scene, so there's this sound of puking and then people are naked and there's meat everywhere. It was unlike anything I've ever seen.
ME: Were you in the orgy scene?
THEM: No, at that point, I was backstage--and backstage was the freezer. The meat freezer.
ME: They had you in the freezer?
THEM: There were two freezers. One of them worked, one didn't. We were in the one that didn't, but sometimes the door would close and it would be hard to open.
ME: Like Cherry on Punky Brewster.
THEM: I used to think of that. It was pretty scary.
ME: So it wasn't cold in there?
THEM: No, but it smelled really bad.
ME: Who has two freezers?
THEM: I always thought the butcher shop was a front for the mob, but I never said anything.
ME: Did the other actors complain?
THEM: They were all very much on the same page as the artistic staff. They thought they were making this really cool statement.
ME: What was the statement?
THEM: That greed and capitalism are like meat and--I have no idea.
ME: Like the pigs? Maybe something to do with the pigs?
THEM: Maybe. There was an oven and at the end we used to shove Scrooge into the oven. Into the real oven.
ME: You did not.
THEM: I mean, it was off, but it was still an oven.
ME: How did nobody stop this?
THEM: Nobody stops anything unless someone reports you, and I think--I think everyone was like 'If they're doing it, it must be safe. They must have done their homework.'
ME: Meanwhile, you're shoving an actor into an oven.
THEM: He screamed the whole time. Every curse word in the book. 'YOU MOTHERF*$&ERS! I'LL GET YOU MOTHERF#$&%S.' Don't forget, we still had kids in the audience. People thought this was okay to bring kids to because it's A Christmas Carol.
ME: Oh my god.
THEM: Oh yeah. If they were lucky, their parents got them out of there before Scrooge tried making out with Bob the Ghost.
ME: No!
THEM: He used to play with his chains. It was--I'm shaking my head, but you have to remember, a lot of these people were called geniuses by the community.
ME: Never call anyone a genius.
THEM: They had free reign--in their minds.
ME: Was there music?
THEM: Oh right, you want me to talk about the---
ME: Yeah, I'm not great at prompting.
THEM: It was Slipknot and, uh, not Metallica, but--it was a local band like Metallica. We used all their music.
ME: I guess that's appropriate in a butcher shop.
THEM: It was so loud. We got noise complaints.
ME: Was any part of this show not atrocious?
THEM: Um, our Fred was really good. He was--he is a great actor. I haven't seen him in awhile, but he was excellent. He would spit and, like, claw at himself in all the asylum scenes, and then when Scrooge would come to get him and, um, I don't know, set him free, he would really cry every night. He should be in a movie. He was that good.
ME: Is the company that did this show still around?
THEM: No, they merged with another group and now they only do musicals.
ME: I have to see one of these musicals.
THEM: I think they did Jesus Christ Superstar, but it looked pretty tame. I don't think any of the same people are still there.
ME: That's a shame.
THEM: I know, right? I would love to see Jesus Christ hacking up a sirloin.
Them has only been in A Christmas Carol once--if you can call it that.
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