Colonial Players hope new Christmas production will fill seats

By THERESA WINSLOW, Staff Writer

Published 11/29/09

Matthew Cole — For The Capital ’Tis the season for change at Colonial Players. The Annapolis theater troupe is breaking with tradition this year and offering a new musical, “The Christmas Doll,” as its holiday play. TOP: Actress Lesley Miller discusses the show with director Kurt Dornheim. The play opens later this week and takes the place of “A Christmas Carol.” BOTTOM: Miller, of Arnold, gets into costume for an open house last weekend.

Will it be a merry Christmas at Colonial Players or a holiday humbug?

Without its traditional musical version of "A Christmas Carol," no one is quite sure at this point, but plenty of people connected to the Annapolis troupe are nervous.

Earlier this year, Colonial decided to break with a 28-year tradition and switch holiday shows. Right now, it's just for a year as the "Christmas Carol" musical is retooled, but the decision wasn't without controversy.

In fact, angry calls and e-mails are still coming in; some actors boycotted auditions for the replacement show, "The Christmas Doll";...

This story has expired!
You can purchase the full text in our news archives.

YOUR COMMENTS

RULES OF PARTICIPATION

If you encounter other problems, please email ewiffin@capitalgazette.com and include your name, username, and any errors or messages that are displayed. The more information you can provide, the better able we will be to assist you.

In order to post or vote on a comment, you must be signed in with a hometownannapolis account.

Take a look at a summary of Commenting Guidelines.

Report Abuse or Vote In order to allow the user community the ability to collectively rank the value of comments posted on the Capital Gazette websites we have implemented a thumbs-up/down system. All logged-in users may participate by voting up/down each comment. If others vote on your comment, your individual score will go up/down depending on the votes. Initially, everyone starts with a score of zero, and must earn credits to have significant voting weight. Individuals with higher scores will have more voting weight. 0 0

Might not have been the best decisi - 2009-11-30 22:53:05

I'm pretty sure I've never seen a CP production, but everything I've heard about their work has been positive. I wish them the best with their "Christmas Doll" production this season, but I can't understand, at least from the information provided in the article, why the company would ditch a long-running show with guaranteed success in the midst of a recession. It seems like bad business, and it doesn't sound like they have a good grasp on what their audience enjoys. Maybe "Doll" is really a great show, but even the cast member comments cast doubt on whether the show is any fun ("It's not as uplifting as 'Christmas Carol'"). I hope this season's show is successful for the company, but the information provided here makes it sound like the production company is out of touch.

unhide Comment hidden due to low ranking. Why is this comment hidden?

Jeffrey A. Haines - Millersville, MD - Karma: Good