A Reminisce by Matthew Rodenkirch
And then we had “A Christmas Carol,” which again was great fun. And I remember thinking it would be really great to play "‘Scrooge." "Bob Cratchit" is also a great part, I thought it just kind of depends what Therese was thinking for actors for the role. Then she asked me to do the set design, and I was a bit skittish about that, because I don’t want to be her ‘go to’ set designer, and then never get to act, and I said, "I’ll consider it provided you’ll still consider me for a part," which she promised me she would do.
We started talking about it, and I had actually been giving the play a good deal of thought, because I know how many sets there would be for “Christmas Carol,” and just having been so involved for the past twenty-five years in various aspects, I thought ‘Well, how is she going to pull this off?’ I mean there is a lot to do. "Is she going to do a rotating set? What is she going to do?" And naturally I think, "Well, what would I do?" I would go minimalist. I would use as little pieces as possible. Just get the impression of the setting, without having to have a
whole… You’re not going to do a three-wall set for every setting. That’s just way too much.
When we first starting about it, and she said she wanted to go minimalist, I agreed to do it based on two notions. One, I had already given it some thought, and two, we were thinking along the same lines already. So there wasn’t going to be a big fight about things. There wasn’t going be endless rounds of meeting of "You want to do what? How are we going to do this? What do you have in mind?"
We were very copasetic right from the get-go, and I think that helped the entire process move really really quickly, and because of the nature of that show, and my technical background, we pretty much integrated my role in set design with doing the technical work as well, and that allowed that sort of seamless blending of, you know, "Can I put a light cue in here?" Well, of course I can, I’m in charge of that as well, so however I want stuff, it’s just a matter of contacting the Director instead of bringing in a third party or a fourth party with doing the sound design and doing the light design.
Steve Wilson actually did the light design, but of course he did it under our direction, and for him it was more a matter of "This is what we want to do. This is the stuff we’re going to need," and he put it together and had the (light) plot going. But the actual cueing and every thing we
needed was something that Therese and I had worked on. But of course it was all done with this in mind, you know, "How are we going to achieve this effect?" And being able to say, "Well, we turn off the lights. We move this. Or we do this with the lights, and then we do that." Just only having two people working on it sort of
made everything move a lot faster, instead of having to try and get a hold of Steve Wilson and say, "Can we do this?" or “Can we do that?" I know what this theater was capable of. And (it) turned out splendidly. I think everybody really liked it.
I would have had a lot scarier ‘Christmas Past,’ but Therese deliberately did not want to do that. But I don’t mind scaring little children. She doesn’t want to do that.
"Christmas Carol" was the first time I had worked with kids. That was a trip. I don’t relate well to children. This was a difficult gig for me that way.
I think my relationship with the kids actually went very well because I didn’t treat them like kids. I didn’t know how to treat them. So I just – I’m going to treat you like a normal person Not having raised a child, I didn’t have my
own preconceived notion of what I think a ten-year-old was, or twelve-year-old or thirteen or fifteen-year-old.
There were times when they could be a little bit of a nuisance. But there were other times when we all seemed to get along very well. Especially me and the Cratchit daughters got along really well just joking around and just generally having fun.
I think I got them into trouble a few times. There was the scarf fight, and the snowball fight outside, and of course, naturally, they got yelled at. But I stepped up the to plate, and I said, ‘Well, actually, um, I started that. I flicked the
first scarf.’ So there were just generally some little difficulties there that way.
The main problem I had was Sunday matinee. Very early, I think it was before we’d even gone on, and we were waiting. One of the Cratchit daughters discovered I was ticklish, and it made the day just brutal. I was getting attacked by twelve-year-old
girls every time I turned around backstage. It was just insane. But they were generally good kids.
So, "Would I ever want to work with kids again?" It would my preference not to, but I wouldn’t say I wouldn’t do it.
Therese pointed out something at the Cast Party that never really occurred to me, not being used to working on large casts. She really complimented the cast that there were no cliques. I’d never really thought of that, but when she said it, I realized that we didn’t have conflicts with people
not getting along. Or with "Oh, there’s always this group of girls over here, and they’re kind of isolating this other one or two girls." The boys always got along well, the girls got along well. Nobody really got into their own little groups and created problems. Everybody sort of melded together very well. I thought that was a great observation; one that I hadn’t even realized.
She’s very good with kids. She treats them the way they need to be treated. Especially under those types of circumstances, you need to be very, very firm with them. And I appreciated that.
We had one kid who (was) very rambunctious, and so I tried to give him jobs. He wanted to be helpful, so I was always giving him a little something to do to try to keep him out of trouble as best I could.
I think the only other problem would be there were times when I was busy doing things and the kids wanted to talk to me. And it’s like, "Right now I don’t have time to chit-chat." There are times when I can sit around and do nothing, and ‘shoot the bull.’ Other times I have to be running around doing something. They don’t have a responsibility beyond showing up and doing their part. I did.
Which also resulted in my giving one girl a "piggy-back ride." One of the Cratchit girls again, Olivia. She wasn’t being annoying. She was kind of a hanger-on. I was running around, trying to take care
of things, getting loaded up, and she’s literally pushing on my shoulders, jumping on my shoulders. So I crouched down and picked her up and (was) carrying her around the theater for a while in the afternoon. I think she had great fun, ‘cause I kept trying to bash her head on the doorway, playfully, as a joke. That was interesting.
