Holiday Traditions at Ford’s: A Christmas Carol
With the holiday season upon us, we are delighted to have our annual production of A Christmas Carol now on stage. For more than 35 years, we have brought Dickens’s tale to life for Washington audiences. We’ve used three different adaptations of the novella to produce five different stage versions, each featuring different costume, set and lighting designs.
Our current production will celebrate its 500th performance on December 9, 2017. That’s a lot of bah humbugs and pounds of theatrical snow! I’m thrilled to welcome back Craig Wallace as Scrooge. Craig just finished a star turn as Willy Loman in our Death of a Salesman. Our audiences also know him well from his roles as Hoke in Driving Miss Daisy and Frederick Douglass in Necessary Sacrifices.
This year marks the ninth consecutive season our company has collected money for Washington charities. Through their efforts and our audience’s generous support, they have raised more than $625,000 dollars for local charities dedicated to eradicating homelessness, hunger and poverty. This year, they will raise money on behalf of House of Ruth.
Following A Christmas Carol, I hope you will join us for Jefferson’s Garden. Set during the American Revolution, this sweeping drama grapples with the definition of freedom and the nature of America. The production is part of the second Women’s Voices Theater Festival. Organized by Ford’s and six other major Washington-area theatres, the festival features more than 25 theatres simultaneously producing works by female writers. The festival is just one response to the issue that far fewer female writers’ plays receive full productions on America’s stages than those of their male counterparts.
Finally, our season ends with the musical The Wiz, a joyous Tony-winning adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
I hope to see you at the theatre soon!
Paul Tetreault is Director of Ford’s Theatre Society. Since joining Ford’s in 2004, Tetreault has enhanced the quality of the institution’s artistic programming and expanded its mission to include a stronger focus on education. He led a $50+ million capital campaign, the most extensive renovation to the theatre and museum since the building reopened to the public in 1968, and the creation of the Aftermath Exhibits at the Center for Education and Leadership. Learn more here.
