The Fine Arts department of Ozarks Technical Community College will present Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” at the Gillioz Theater Friday and Saturday Nov. 21-22 at 7:30 p.m., with a matinee on Sunday, Nov. 23 at 2:30 p.m. This is an original adaptation written by the production's director, OTC theater instructor Jon Herbert. He says their production is "fun--and often funny--and also a bit heart-wrenching at times."
Asked how the idea came about, Herbert says that when the school decided to move their annual theater production at the Gillioz from the spring to the fall, they determined to make it “an annual tradition—a Springfield tradition, a Gillioz tradition, an OTC tradition” with A Christmas Carol. “I went out to look for an adaptation, and there are so many. And I read a lot of them and found that in many cases, people were being, as I wanted to be, very true to Charles Dickens. So I thought, why not just do what these other playwrights did, and take his story and translate it to the stage—to save myself the time of sifting through adaptations... and, frankly, the royalties! So I just decided to write my own.”
OTC Fine Arts Department first performed Herbert’s version last year. Three performances were scheduled—but two got snowed out. “This year the script has undergone a revision. Each year I’m going to revise the script a little further and refine and evolve it.”
Actually, they were originally planning to do a “neo-Victorian sci-fi” version—as Herbert says, “some people would call that ‘steam-punk’! But as a producing body we decided we wanted to go traditional the first time around.
The cast of 26, which includes seven 5th graders, portray some 55 roles.
General admission is $8.00; tickets are available at the Gillioz box office, 863-9491 or at www.gillioz.org. Admission is FREE to OTC students, faculty and staff, who can pick up their tickets in advance at the Help Desk located the Information Commons building on the OTC Springfield campus.
