You and I call it “A Christmas Carol.” Andrea L. Shell just calls it “Carol.”
She’s on a BFF-style nickname-basis with Dickens’ masterpiece because she knows it better than just about anyone in town.
Shell is the production stage manager for Playhouse in the Park, which has delighted Cincinnati audiences with “A Christmas Carol” for 30 years.
She’s been part of 19 of them.
“Like many long running things, you never want to get in a rut,” Shell said. And from the first rehearsal, this year felt different. “There’s just been an overall joyousness,” she said. “It was just a love fest in masks.”
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After a pandemic-induced year without a “Carol,” actors returned to the stage, crew members returned to the trap room and Shell returned to her booth, where she oversees every one of the 40+ performances.
Now, you and I won’t see the production stage manager – and if everything goes as planned, we won’t hear her, either. But she has a hand in everything you see on stage. She’s the conductor of this orchestra, wielding a headset instead of a baton.
Her job is to communicate across creative and technical departments to make sure everything goes smoothly, from set pieces moving at the proper time to alerting costumers that there’s an errant curl falling out of an actor’s hat. She calls the show so that each performance speaks to both the family who has attended for decades and those who are seeing it for the first time.
Like the audience, the “Carol” cast and crew is a mix of newbies and those who’ve been around since Day 1. “There’s always that balance of new people coming in keeping it fresh, asking the questions that need to be asked,” Shell said. “And then there are those of us who are veterans, upholding tradition, making sure the through-line is there. It’s beautifully orchestrated that way so it constantly has new life.”
Its new life this year means a smaller cast and a new narrator. Think tweaks, not changes. And that’s just the way it should be.
We love “A Christmas Carol” because we love tradition, especially around the holidays. And we love the story that shows that even the darkest of souls can find light, even if it does take visits from three ghosts and a glimpse into his own grave for him to realize it.
Shell paused when I asked her about her favorite moments in the show. There were too many to name, and I knew it was like asking a mother to name her favorite child. “I got to be there both when Joneal Joplin’s son played his younger version (Joplin played Ebenezer Scrooge before Bruce Cromer), and now I’m here while Charlie Cromer plays Bruce’s younger self. The first time watching each of them see that …. those are the things I latch onto.”
And even after hundreds of performances, she gets that lump in her throat just like we do. “Scrooge’s promise at the end of the show is a moment for me,” she said, her eyes welling up at the thought. “His promise to honor Christmas year-round – and what that means. It’s the only time in the show when an actor specifically connects with me in the booth. Bruce and I share that moment.”
To begin every performance, Shell dons her headset and whispers a phrase the show’s director, Michael Evan Haney, would say before rehearsals.
“Make it sing.”
Lucky for us, she follows her own directions.
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