Holiday theater is a wonderland of tech magic

This year, a number of theater technicians working on the season’s biggest shows across Atlanta shared some behind-the-scenes tidbits of how they make holiday moments happen.

Props

Caroline Cook, prop master for “A Christmas Story,” running until Dec. 24 at Theatrical Outfit, said the central object of the show — a beloved BB-shooting air rifle — holds a special significance for her own family.

The iconic Red Ryder gift that young Ralphie unwraps onstage was ordered specifically for the show, Cook said, but the other two BB guns used onstage during the dream sequences were provided by her own father, James.

Credit: Photo by Casey Gardner Ford

Credit: Photo by Casey Gardner Ford

“I credit a lot to my dad,” Cook said. “He’s always been a big supporter of me. And last year, when I told him we were doing the show, he was very excited. He ran to the basement and grabbed both of the rifles he had from his childhood. They’re the ones that don’t get wrapped up.”

When she informed him that one needed to be bedazzled to match a cowboy costume, her dad agreed to anything she needed.

“It’s really special,” she said. “There’s a piece that I’ll know is from my family, something that we contributed to this. It’s fun touches like that which really are important in designs for me.”

Cook said that, because the play involves children in the cast, the BB guns are securely locked away until the moment they’re required onstage. No one will shoot their eyes out, she assured.

Scenic design

Set designer Alexander Whittenberg has also filled Ralphie’s house with personal and period touches for “A Christmas Story,” infusing the set with pieces by Norman Rockwell, Western film posters and memorabilia from “The Wizard of Oz” to match the show’s fantasy sequences.

“I’m a big fan of ‘The Wizard of Oz,’” Whittenberg said. “Of course, having the direct tie to his fantasy, it just felt appropriate. I had this framed Emerald City poster in my apartment. Actually, a lot of the stuff on the set is from my apartment, and then I had a postcard of this Margaret Hamilton image, which I just adore. So it makes sense to have the remnants of Ralphie’s dreams or nightmares in his room.”

Credit: Photo by Alexander Whittenberg

Credit: Photo by Alexander Whittenberg

Since “A Christmas Story” frequently breaks the fourth wall when the narrator speaks to the audience, Whittenberg made a point of adding the actual back wall of Theatrical Outfit, which is often hidden during other shows, into his design.

“Rachel Blackwell, the lighting designer, and I originally had a plan to have the cyclorama in use, so it would just be a solid block of color behind the set,” Whittenberg said. “But as soon as we walked in and saw this brick wall, we thought, well, this is something we can’t ignore. So it was a conscious choice to use the brick wall as our actual back wall for the set, because it plays into the idea of the tradition of the building itself.”

Costumes

The four ghosts of “A Christmas Carol” at Alliance Theatre, running until Dec. 24, are played by four actors who narrate the remainder of the show while dressed as a chorus of carolers. Thus, during the production, the costume shop must help the actors quickly change from Victorian garb into ethereal, supernatural outfits.

“So actors will come off of stage, we get them out of the previous clothes and into the new outfit,” said costume design assistant Summer Barnes. “For Rhyn McLemore’s Ghost of Christmas Past, she has that wonderful, glittery ball gown this year “We’re stationed in a variety of different places backstage, depending on where actors are coming in from. I don’t think I have a time of what the quickest change is in the show, but it can get pretty fast.”

Credit: Photo courtesy of Alliance Theatre

Credit: Photo courtesy of Alliance Theatre

For Marley’s Ghost, played by Lowrey Brown, the effects are particularly haunting, according to Melanie Green, assistant costume director at the Alliance.

“For the Marley change, he gets his ghostly makeup put on, which gives him that sort of undead pallor that he has during that scene,” Green said. “He also gets a white wig. Because of the combination of the lighting and the fog effects during that moment he emerges from the fireplace, it gives him the look of coming out of the grave — and looking a lot more undead than the rest of the ghosts. So it’s a combination of costume, makeup and lighting.”

The seamless transitions are a credit to the team, Barnes said.

“A lot of the work really comes from our amazing wardrobe team that we have backstage. They’re the ones that are in charge of all the costumes throughout the run of the show, all of the quick changes, all of the different tracking of entrances and exits that goes on with that. And they’re kind of seasoned veterans at this point when it comes to the show, so it runs a little bit like clockwork.”

Sound design

Though much of the long-running, improvised “Invasion: Christmas Carol,” onstage until Dec. 30 at Dad’s Garage, is unpredictable, certain elements are guaranteed to occur in every performance. And sound designer Dan Bauman has created all the underlying noises for the crew to use during those guaranteed story moments.

“I’ve done it now 13 times,” Bauman said. “The show has settled into itself at this point that a lot of the cues are the same, in the same spots on the same pages, but we change it up every year.”

Credit: Photo courtesy of Dan Bauman

Credit: Photo courtesy of Dan Bauman

For the first weeks of rehearsal, the cast runs through a standard script for “A Christmas Carol,” then once the show and all its beats are set, a different surprise guest improviser comes in every performance to “invade” Scrooge’s story.

“The tenet of the show is that you’ve got to get to the end of the scene, you have to hit cue lines and you have to finish,” Bauman said. “I always joke that the show is not going to end until somebody — doesn’t matter who — says, ‘God bless us everyone!’”

To create the eerie noises marking the arrival of the Ghost of Christmas Future, Bauman layers noises to jar the audience’s senses.

“There’s ambient noises; there are animal growls,” he said. “There’s a lot of sounds stacked to make a thing. This year, when Scrooge is in the presence of Future, there’s a big ambient sound going on. And there are different noises to indicate that Future is talking to Scrooge. And then when they transition into what the visions that the future is showing Scrooge, that changes to a different soundscape — a little quieter, more ethereal and otherworldly.”

Music

Aurora Theatre’s annual “Christmas Canteen,” running until Dec. 22, presents a showcase of holiday songs with the fun of an old-fashioned variety. But this year’s production will feel more like a modern concert, with audience participation moments, glow sticks and some music remixes to pump up the formula.

Music Director Ann-Carol Pence said she has been arranging songs for the show for 29 years, “longer than most of my cast has been alive.”

Show Director Katie Chambers added that the show has a DJ remix feel this year to spare Pence and her band from having to arrange a 50-song show every year. The songs are also chosen based upon the cast’s favorites every year.

“In terms of song selection, we try to do about half and half new material and material that our audience has seen before,” Chambers said. “Sometimes the new material isn’t completely new. We’ll use songs that we’ve used before, but we’ll mash them up in new ways or stage them in new ways.”

Lighting

Stage Door Theatre’s production of “Every Christmas Story Ever Told,” running until Dec. 22, is itself a remix of a variety of holiday favorites, told with three performers in an abridged, comic style in only 90 minutes.

Lighting designer Lindsey Sharpless said she is able to distinguish the tone of each story, from “It’s a Wonderful Life” to “The Grinch,” by shifting the colors of the lights onstage.

“I lean pretty heavily on color and intensity levels,” Sharpless said. “For example, there’s two children’s shows that they cover. They do ‘The Grinch’ and ‘Rudolph’ and so there’s a base look that is bright, happy, colorful. The deeper, adult sections have heavier backlight, so it’s slightly more shadowy.”

Sharpless said lighting designers have to pay attention to the way everything appears onstage from every angle, and the seats of Stage Door wrap around three corners of the stage. During rehearsals, Sharpless sits in every area of Stage Door, just to assure that everything is presented properly.

Sharpless is also designing the lights for Murder on the Polar Express at OutFront Theatre, running through Dec. 22, and she said she’ll be putting a number of corpses under the spotlight for that show.

And, of course, snow

Credit: Photo by Lisa Adler

Credit: Photo by Lisa Adler

This year’s production of the improvised “Y’allmark Christmas” has moved to 7 Stages, running through Dec. 23, with a pared-down production featuring Topher Payne, Amber Nash and Kevin Gillese in each performance.

A parody of Hallmark Christmas movies that ran for two years at Horizon Theatre, every performance will still end with a kiss under the snowfall. But instead of the snow falling from above, Payne said he’ll personally be causing the effect.

“Normally, that’s done with a snow cradle, triggered from the booth,” Payne said. “Since this year’s show is all about figuring out the ‘road version,’ I shall be firing a snow cannon at Kevin and Amber from the stage. This pleases me.”

God bless us, every one.

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Benjamin Carr is an ArtsATL editor-at-large who has contributed to the publication since 2019 and is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association, the Dramatists Guild, the Atlanta Press Club and the Horror Writers Association. His writing has been featured in podcasts for iHeartMedia, onstage as part of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival and online in The Guardian. His debut novel, “Impacted,” was published by the Story Plant.

Credit: ArtsATL

Credit: ArtsATL

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