Backstage at McCarter: Bringing 'A Christmas Carol' to Life

Candace Braun

While watching McCarter Theatre's annual production of A Christmas Carol may be a family tradition of holiday merriment for an audience member, the magic that goes into making the show each year takes more than a little ghostly fairy dust.

With 36 performers and 21 people working backstage, every movement, every word, every special effect has to be choreographed perfectly. From cueing scenery to fly on and off stage on strings, rails along the floor, or a push stick, to cueing special effects such as dry ice, fog, and strobe lights, there are many different aspects of the show that have to be timed exactly to keep the show going.

The person making sure it all runs smoothly is Cheryl Mintz, the production stage manager. Ms. Mintz is in her fourteenth season at McCarter, and her tenth as the resident stage manager. She has managed over 45 McCarter productions.

This is McCarter's 24th production of A Christmas Carol, and the fifth year for which they've used this particular set for the show, said Ms. Mintz, adding that she has managed the production the last 11 years.

Thursday, December 9, was one of the debut shows for this year's cast, which was performing to a packed house of several school groups.

"The students coming to McCarter are thoroughly prepared ... We want the theater to be part of their lives," said Ms. Mintz, adding that along with a work packet sent out to teachers, cast members also go out to the schools before they come to the show and hold a workshop for them. But because this show was taking place on a weekday, didn't the child actors need to be in school?

Children are notified during auditions of the handful of school days they must miss for productions, said Ms. Mintz.

"The local schools are used to this," she said, adding that everyone involved keeps track of the students and their homework to make sure they don't get behind; often their time-management skills improve.

"In my 11 years doing this, students have always come out more confident, self-assured, and with their grades up," she said.

The children in the show range in age from 5 to 13 years old. Each year they all must re-audition, even if they've been in several shows in the past. Only 13 children are selected from the approximate 140 who audition, said Ms. Mintz.

The children are always well-behaved with the older actors as well, she said: "You don't see any ugly cat fights among the children backstage."

Bringing It To Life

While casting and rehearsing take up a great deal of time for the actors, once the cast is put on stage in costume with all of the scenery, special effects, and lights, it takes two-and-a-half days to go through all the technical work and make sure every single part of the show runs the way it's supposed to.

Small details make the show come alive, said Ms. Mintz, mentioning intimate movements of light from the upstairs to the downstairs rooms of the set, and a small red light inside the stage stove to make it look as though a fire is burning.

Certain parts of the show create an element of mystery and surprise, as when the door handle on Scrooge's house speaks to him as the ghost of Jacob Marley, operated by a hand puppet, and a large, towering figure representing the ghost of Christmas Yet To Come glides on stage, operated by one person wearing a backpack with controls, and another whose sole purpose is to operate the hand movements.

Thursday, before the show started, Ms. Mintz's main objective was to let everyone in the cast and crew know that there was a problem with the machine that pulled the set for Scrooge and Marley's counting house off the stage. Hoping for the best, the cast would have to be prepared to deal with the kinks until someone came to fix it at 1 p.m., once the show was over.

"We do have a back-up plan, so that someone can just crank it if necessary," she said. The machine, which was used in the Broadway show, Contact, can normally pull two tons of scenery across the floor. While this particular piece of scenery was originally close to that weight, it had to be reworked because it was top-heavy, said Ms. Mintz.

Backstage

For Ms. Mintz, this year the routine has been slightly altered from the past. Eight months pregnant, she needed help from a backstage assistant climbing the steep, narrow staircase leading up to the production booth. After reaching the top she was out of breath, and called down to another backstage worker to bring her a fruit cup, as she was feeling light-headed from the climb.

"I'm kind of crashing a little bit. Can you bring me some food?" she asked.

But once the curtain opened and the lights went down, all outside distractions were gone. Ms. Mintz's number one focus was the show.

A small crisis was called to the attention of everyone offstage when Scrooge's mic stopped working. While he also has a back-up mic, it appeared that moisture had gotten inside it, causing it to malfunction, as well.

"Sometimes the actors sweat the mics out," said Ms. Mintz.

It was determined that one of the backstage workers would grab Scrooge as he came off stage to let him know about the problem.

While one might presume that intermission is a time for everyone, including those involved, to take a break, many of the stage hands and cast members must get ready for Act Two. Scrooge was hooked up to a leather harness, as he would begin the next scene flying around the room. A test flight was performed during intermission, and as the scene began, all stage hands were quiet, as full concentration was needed to make sure the flying scene went according to plan. "The most important thing is his safety," said Ms. Mintz.

Despite the many technicalities and back stage problems, no one in the audience could see anything but an outstanding performance. Laughter, cries of surprise, and large rounds of applause met this year's cast and crew of A Christmas Carol.