MARK YOUR CALENDAR

December 9 - 11, Pontine Theatre’s co-artistic directors, Marguerite Mathews and Greg Gathers, present its original Toy Theatre adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol. The program also includes an original staging of Jimmy Scarecrow’s Christmas adapted from a short story by 19th century Massachusetts writer, Mary Wilkins Freeman. (Continued below)

Seacoast musician, Barbara London, will provide a wide selection of holiday songs, and the audience will enjoy eggnog and Christmas cookies. Toy Theatre is an antique parlor entertainment, performed on a miniature table-top, two-dimensional stage, with cut-out scenery and actors. It reached the height of popularity in England, during the Victoian era. This historic theatrical style is ideally suited to a rendition of Dickens’ endearing story. Performances are scheduled at Pontine’s West End Studio Theatre, 959 Islington Street, Portsmouth NH, for Friday 9 December at 8pm, Saturday 10 December at 4pm and at 8pm, and Sunday 11 December at 2pm.  Tickets are $24 and may be purchased in advance at Pontine’s website:  www.pontine.org.  Tickets may also be purchased at the door a half-hour prior to performances (cash & checks only) based on availability.

ABOUT CHARLES DICKENS & A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Charles Dickens' beloved story, A Christmas Carol,  was written in 1843, with the intention of drawing readers' attention to the plight of England's poor. In the tale, Dickens combines a description of hardships faced by the poor with a heart-rending celebration of the Christmas season. The calloused character of the apathetic penny-pinching Ebenezer Scrooge, who opens his heart after being confronted by three spirits, remains one of Dickens' most widely recognized and popular creations. The story's emotional depth, brilliant narration, and endearing characters offer plenty of rewards for Dickensian fans and Grinches alike.

Charles Dickens was born in 1812. His father, John, was a kind and likable man, but he was financially irresponsible, piling up tremendous debts throughout his life.  When Dickens was twelve, his father was arrested and sent to debtors' prison. Dickens' mother moved seven of their children into prison with their father but arranged for Charles to live alone outside the prison, working at a hellish job pasting labels on bottles in a blacking warehouse.

The time Charles spent apart from his family were severely traumatic. After his father was released from prison, Dickens returned to school, eventually becoming a law clerk. He went on to serve as a court reporter before taking his place as one of the most popular English novelists of his time. At age 25, Dickens completed his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, which met with great success. This started his career as an English literary celebrity, during which he produced such masterpieces as Great Expectations, David Copperfield, and A Tale of Two Cities.

ABOUT MARY WILKINS FREEMAN & JIMMY SCARECROW’S CHRISTMAS

Mary Wilkins Freeman (1852 – 1930) was born in Randolph, Massachusetts, and attended Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. She later finished her education at West Brattleboro Seminary. She passed the greater part of her life in Massachusetts and Vermont.  She is  considered an early feminist writer, placed in the same category as writers such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Sarah Orne Jewett. Samuel Clemens (nom de plume Mark Twain) was an avid supporter and was directly so quoted.   Among the best known of her works are the The Revolt of Mother which has been dramatized and was broadcast on PBS (Public Broadcasting Service). Her novels Pembroke and A Humble Romance also received critical acclaim  In April 1926, Freeman became the first recipient of the William Dean Howells Medal for Distinction in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

ABOUT TOY THEATRE

Toy theatre, also called paper theatre and model theatre, is a form of miniature theater dating back to the early 19th century in Europe.  The original toy theaters were mass-produced replicas of popular plays, sold as kits that people assembled at home, including stage, scenery, characters and costumes.  Just as the toy-sized stages diminished a play’s scale, their corresponding scripts abridged the text, paring it down to key characters and story lines.

In 1884 British author Robert Louis Stevenson wrote an essay in tribute of toy theater’s tiny grandeur entitled “Penny Plain, Twopence Coloured.” Other authors like Lewis Carroll and Hans Christian Andersen also dabbled in toy theater, as did Oscar Wilde. The brothers, Jack and William Butler Yeats,  both used toy theaters for their work in art and stagecraft.

In the 20th century toy theater became a tool for the avant-garde, explored by Futurist founder F.T. Marienetti as well as Pablo Picasso. Film directors like Ingmar Bergman and Orson Welles  used toy theaters as staging grounds for their cinematic masterpieces, and Laurence Olivier even made a toy theater of his film version of Hamlet, mass-produced with a little paper cutout of himself in the starring role.

Toy theater has been enjoying a revival in recent decades. Collectors and traditionalists perform restored versions of Victorian plays while experimental puppeteers push the form’s limits.

ABOUT BARBARA LONDON

Barbara London is a musician, artist, writer, and educator. Her long career in the arts has involved leading her own jazz groups (on flute, piano, vocals), composing and producing recordings for her wild aster label, exhibiting her watercolor paintings, and writing workbooks and poetry.  Barbara’s credits include three National Endowment for the Arts jazz performance grants, the Newport Jazz Festival in NYC, the Women’s Jazz Festival in Kansas City, an art show at the United Nations, and performances across the country and abroad. She became the first female chair at Berklee College of Music in 1994.  Barbara currently has a studio at the Salmon Falls Mills in Rollinsford, NH, where she displays her recordings, framed watercolors, and cards.  Visit her website at www.wildaster.com

ABOUT PONTINE

Serving the Seacoast since 1977, Pontine Theatre has developed a sterling reputation for high quality performances and educational programs.  With an impressive repertoire of innovative, original productions, the company serves both its home town, Portsmouth, NH and New England and neighboring states.

At the West End Studio Theatre, located in Portsmouth, an at-home performance series showcases all of the company's premieres and the works of a national roster of guest artists.  Two things unite the wide range of work presented in Pontine's at-home performance series: all use expression through movement as a primary dramatic vehicle and all are original works created by the artists who perform them.  Pontine is committed to presenting a diverse range of voices on its stage, and a full-range of movement styles.  The 2011-12 Performance Series includes: NYC-based performer, Sean Christopher Lewis in his original production, Just Kids, Pontine Theatre in their original toy theatre staging of A Christmas Carol, New York-based North American Cultural Laboratory (NACL) in their original production, The Little Farm Show,  Vermont-based Mud Time Theatre in , their original production, The Nine Questions & Mildred Taken Crazy, and the premiere of an original adaptation of stories by Kittery Point native, John Savary Wasson, Cap’n Simeon’s Store by Pontine Theatre.

Pontine's touring program brings the company to audiences throughout New England.  The company offers performances, workshops, and residencies at community centers, historical societies, libraries, museums, and assisted living communities for seniors and the disabled.  Last season, Pontine offered fifty-five performances in thirty-two communities throughout New England.

Over the past decade, Pontine has become well known for a group of critically acclaimed productions which specifically reflect the history and culture of New England.  These include a staging of Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s 1896 novel The Story of a Bad Boy; an original adaptation of Brewster’s Rambles About Portsmouth; Wallace Nutting’s Old America, about the Colonial Revival Movement; an original adaptation of Sarah Orne Jewett’s 1896 novel, The Country of the Pointed Firs, which chronicles daily life in the maritime villages of Southern Maine;  Cornish Castles, based on the life and work of New Hampshire painter, Maxfield Parrish; Journey to Heaven, based on the history, lives and beliefs of the Shakers; and Dearly Earned, about 19th century textile mill workers.  These plays have been performed in venues throughout the region, including Canterbury Shaker Village, Currier Museum, Decordova Museum, Enfield Shaker Village, Museum of Fine Art-Boston.