My Walk-On Role at A.C.T.'s A Christmas Carol

-
By Julia Ludwig

Most years, A.C.T.'s annual gala auctions a behind-the-scenes experience and walk-on role for the production of A Christmas Carol. As a part of my special events fellowship at A.C.T. during the 2016–17 season, I had the chance to chaperone our younger walk-on role participants. It was a fun and engaging experience, and I won't soon forget taking a bow on the Geary stage with the entire Christmas Carol company.


Julia Ludwig dressed in her costume for the 2016 production
of A.C.T.'s A Christmas Carol. Photo courtesy Julia Ludwig.
One of my favorite parts of the process was trying on costumes at A.C.T.'s costume shop. With more than 20,000 costumes, there are rows of colorful clothing and accessories from every era you can imagine—it's a dream closet. Once the costume team took my measurements, they picked out some options for me to try on. I loved the shoes I got to wear.

On the day of the performance, I met the two children I would be walking on with at the stage door an hour before the show. We were told that we'd be crossing the stage a few times during the town scenes and then we'd be included in an ensemble number toward the end of the show. Before getting into costume, we warmed up for the performance by playing some improvisation games and practicing vocal exercises with the other young actors. 

After warm-ups, stage manager Karen Szpaller and her team walked us through our "track" (theater lingo for stage blocking). Even though I'm a seasoned performer, I was feeling a little nervous! Karen encouraged us to get into character by coming up with backstories for our performance—this helped me get into the right headspace.

The finale of A.C.T.'s 2016 production of A Christmas Carol. Photo by Kevin Berne.
Since we weren't onstage until the last scene of the show, we waited to get into our costumes until the first act had ended. With the help of A.C.T.'s costume dressers, we were dressed up in Victorian garments and ready to be a part of Carol's winter wonderland. At just the right moment, Karen called us to our places and we walked into the spotlight. Even though we had rehearsed, nothing can prepare you for the energy and excitement you feel from the audience as you step into the light.

During this scene, we shook hands with the villagers and sung the joyous finale song with the entire cast. The show ends triumphantly when Tiny Tim says, "God bless us, everyone" and then snow falls from the sky. In this moment, the magic of theater takes over. After this, the curtain comes down, and the cast scurries offstage to their places for curtain bows. As walk-ons, we were the first to take our bow, so we stood directly behind the curtain and waited for a beat. When the velvet curtain flew up, the lights were too bright for us to see a single face, but we could feel the love of the roaring audience. The Geary Theater is a magnificent space and I feel grateful to have had the opportunity to grace its historic stage.

Julia Ludwig was A.C.T.'s 2016–17 Special Events Fellow. She is currently at Marin Theatre Company as its Development Associate.

A Christmas Carol runs through December 24 at The Geary Theater. Click here to purchase tickets through our website.

Popular posts from this blog

“To Be or Not to Be”: The Iconic Speech’s Origins, Interpretations, and Impact

-
Image
By A.C.T. Publications Staff The opening line of Hamlet ’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy is theater’s most iconic, most referenced quote. What’s less known is the famous speech’s history, with Hamlet ’s earliest publications offering varying versions of its language. Also questioned is its meaning—is Hamlet contemplating suicide or is he weighing the consequences of murder? Though definitive answers are unlikely to arise, the questions “To be or not to be” asks have kept audiences, scholars, and actors engaged for centuries. Hamlet ’ s "To be or not to be" speech as it appears in the three original editions of the play. Photo by Georgelazenby. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons. The first edition, or First Quarto (Q1), of Hamlet was published in 1603. Because the text is much shorter than later editions and its language is less poetic, it is nicknamed the “Bad Quarto” by scholars. “To be or not to be” in Q1 reads as: To be, or not to be—ay, there’s the point. To die, ...
Read more

The American Sound: The Evolution of Jazz

-
Image
By Cecilia Padilla There is nothing so uniquely American as jazz music. In its simplest form, jazz embodies the essence of the American people: bold and inventive. The improvisation of the jazz ensemble can even be seen as a metaphor for the American democratic ideal: musicians playing solos have the liberty to express themselves as long as they adhere to the overall structure of the tune—individual freedom but with responsibility to the group. The evolution of jazz music also carries with it the social development of our nation from slavery to the swinging songs of World War II. Musically, jazz contributed immensely to the way contemporary musicians approach instrumentation, composition, and vocal arrangements. It is difficult to find a popular tune today that does not derive from such jazz icons as Joe Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Thelonious Monk. Jazz is the great equalizer; for more than a hundred years, it has been the common ground between blacks and whites, me...
Read more

A Hell of a Businessman: A Biography of Joe Glaser

-
By Simon Hodgson Born in 1897, Joe Glaser was the son of a successful Russian Jewish physician in Chicago. He originally intended to follow a similar career and entered medical school, but after passing out in the operating room, he realized he wasn’t cut out to be a doctor. He started off in business selling used cars, but found better luck managing prizefighters. In his biography of Al Capone, Laurence Bergreen notes, “Glaser’s power to fix fights earned him a reputation as a sage of boxing, especially among reporters.” With advanced word as to which fights were fixed, Glaser could predict the results—and even the number of rounds—of many bouts in Chicago. His connections with organized crime continued in his next career change, when he began running nightclubs and whorehouses in the South Side for the Chicago Outfit, the powerful underworld gang led by Capone. Glaser’s tendency toward illegal action nearly ended his career. In 1928, he was sentenced to ten years in prison for ...
Read more