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Northridge: A Christmas Carol has become a welcomed holiday tradition at the Plaza del Sol Performance Hall (formerly the Performing Arts Center), as the Metropolitan Educational Theatre offers another glorious production of the classic Dickens tale on Saturday, December 16 at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, December 17, at 2:00 p.m. This marks the return of Ebenezer Scrooge to the Cal State Northridge theatre for the third consecutive year to sell-out audiences.
The Metropolitan Educational Theatre is a nonprofit educational organization that provides young people and adults with a unique opportunity to be active participants in the dramatic process as actors, singers, dancers and good members of an audience. Alex H. Urban has been the artistic director since 1976. Everyone who registers and completes the workshops and rehearsals is assured a role on stage in production performances. Production casts have varied from 100 to 300 young people ranging in age from 4 and up, including many parents of the cast. They have performed in high school, college and community theatres, dinner theatre settings, large outdoor tents and professional theatres in the U.S., Europe, Australia and New Zealand and produce one of the most professional shows you will ever enjoy.
Dickens began writing his "Little Carol" in October 1843, finishing it by the end of November in time to be published for Christmas. Feuding with his publishers, Dickens financed the publishing of the book himself, ordering lavish binding, gilt edging, and hand-colored illustrations and then setting the price at 5 shillings so that everyone could afford it. This combination resulted in disappointingly low profits despite high sales. In the first few days of its release the book sold six thousand copies and its popularity continued to grow. The first and best of his Christmas Books, A Christmas Carol has become a Christmas tradition and easily Dickens' best-known book.
For those who have never read the book or seen the movies or plays depicting Ebenezer Scrooge as a penny-pinching miser in the first degree—the star cares nothing for the people around him and mankind exists only for the money that can be made through exploitation and intimidation. He particularly detests Christmas, which he views as "a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer." Scrooge is visited, on Christmas Eve, by the ghost of his former partner Jacob Marley who died seven Christmas Eves ago.
Marley, a miser from the same mold as Scrooge, is suffering the consequences in the afterlife and hopes to help Scrooge avoid his fate. He tells Scrooge that he will be haunted by three spirits. These three spirits, the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, succeed in showing Scrooge the error of his ways. His glorious reformation complete, Christmas morning finds Scrooge sending a Christmas turkey to his long-suffering clerk, Bob Cratchit, and spending Christmas day in the company of his nephew, Fred, whom he had earlier spurned.
Scrooge's new-found benevolence continues as he raises Cratchit's salary and vows to assist his family, which includes Bob's crippled son, Tiny Tim. In the end Dickens reports that Scrooge became, "as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew."
MET Director Urban’s educational program, The Most Important Person and On Stage: Wally, Bertha and You, has been adopted for use in schools in many states, including California. They reflect his philosophy of directing which strives to make each young person develop greater self-confidence as well as enhance musical, dramatic and dance skills. Mr. Urban has directed in theatres from New York to Los Angeles, Europe to the South Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and Moscow, Russia. His teaching experience includes 30 years as a teacher, administrator, counselor and program development specialist. He is presently a private consultant, resource teacher and artistic director for MET2 (a bi-coastal theatre program) and Artists International of New Zealand and San Francisco. He is currently working on his doctorate at Columbia University in adult education and fine arts. |
