Every Brilliant Thing | Returning to The Wells Theatre Stage

April 25 - 27

Returning to The Wells by Popular Demand! 

This powerful story is told from the perspective of a single performer. An immersive storytelling experience performed in the round that blends comedy, improv, and audience interaction to tell the story of someone growing up in the shadow of their mother's struggle with suicidal depression while learning to grapple with their own journey. Every Brilliant Thing provides a life-affirming jolt of humanism, reminding us that hope comes from the miracles of life’s minutiae.

This transformative production has been touring across Hampton Roads, and throughout the East Coast, faciliating this impactful story for military, navy, assisted living, colleges, and other communities. Through Sentara Health Plans’ generous support, this touring production has touched lives of thousands with more than 70+ performances.

Enjoy this uniquely innovative and inspired experience ON THE WELLS STAGE

THE ROAD SO FAR…

Jeffrey Meanza and Kathryn Hunter-Williams in VSC’s Spring 2022 mainstage production of Every Brilliant Thing.

Review: A merry little Christmas mash-up in Virginia Stage Company’s ‘A Sherlock Carol’

By Paige Laws

The humbug is afoot!

You’d better check your Christmas stockings for Easter eggs, theater parlance for referencing one play in another.

The Virginia Stage Co. has produced Mark Shanahan’s version of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” — “A Merry Little Christmas Carol” — since 2021. Shanahan has also written a sequel, “A Sherlock Carol.” His sometimes sweet, sometimes silly, but always clever sequel is based on Dickens’ classic but mashed up with A. Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” (1892). Confused yet? Fear not.

The shows are running in rep, meaning they are being performed at different times in the same weeks (“A Merry Little Christmas Carol” runs through Dec. 23) with the same set and, mostly, the same cast.

It’s, at first, a most unlikely sounding combo — Dickens and Doyle — but Shanahan makes it make marvelous sense. Scrooge (especially before his Christmas redemption) and Sherlock share one overwhelming character trait: narcissism. Think of it as “The Miser and the Analyzer: A Tale of Two Narcissists.” (Note that critics love hiding Easter eggs, too.) Dickens published “Carol” in 1843 and “A Tale of Two Cities” in 1859. Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes works span 1887 to 1927.

What is afoot in London, 1894, the setting for “A Sherlock Carol”?

Well, the play’s first lines are “Moriarty is dead to begin with. Moriarity is dead.” Sound familiar? Well, the beginning of Dickens’ “Carol” is “Marley was dead: to begin with.” Marley was Scrooge’s long-dead partner, who comes in ghostly form to save Scrooge’s soul. The similar-sounding Moriarty is Holmes’ longtime nemesis, the “Napoleon of Crime,” recently killed in a struggle with Holmes at Reichenbach Falls. But our Holmes here is still haunted by the ghost of Moriarity. He’s so obsessed that Holmes thinks he still sees him fleeing around corners. The play begins with Holmes in a downward spiral of depression, alienated from his only friend Dr. Watson (now happily married). Things look bleak for the world’s greatest detective.

Beatty Barnes, the resilient stand-up comic and tragedian, plays Scrooge in both. The other mostly Equity main cast double also (except Scott Wichmann playing Sherlock Holmes).  Tiny Tim is played by a child in “A Merry Little Christmas Carol,” but is an adult in “A Sherlock Carol” since it’s set two decades later. But didn’t you always wonder what would become of Tiny Tim? Now you’ll know! He becomes a slightly limping Dr. Tim Cratchit, head of a struggling children’s home and hospital.

The doubling, tripling and quadrupling of roles, within and among the plays, is possible because of conventions of story theater (or Epic theater, for loyal Brechtians). Characters engage with one another within the world of the play but also directly address the audience.

The fun is, of course, in recognizing the parallels between two characters’ lives in an adventure designed for them. The similarities and differences ricochet off one another. The more you know of the two “old” characters, the more you’ll try vicariously to save them — from themselves. The audience becomes a vital part of the process by wanting a good “future” for our fictitious friends and dreading their destruction which would equal an attack on our great literary canon.

A less charitable way to view unusual adaptations of the classics is to consider them as a kind of author hacking. Kate Hamill (author of the VSC’s recent “Dracula, A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really”) can be seen as a hacker of Bram Stoker and, often, Jane Austen. Shanahan can be seen as a hacker of Dickens and Doyle.

But, in this case, the hack is so ingenious, so wry, so self-conscious of its “invasive” moves that it works. It entertains. It uplifts rather than denigrates its precious classic sources. Dickens and Doyle are tough enough to take this sort of ribbing. It’s almost like a Great Authors’ roast. The more you know and love your Dickens and Doyle, the more you should appreciate this tribute. And, if you don’t know much about them, you’ll learn more.

Ideally, see both shows, but, at least, see the newer of the two. Remember to take along your Easter basket.

Page Laws is dean emerita of the Nusbaum Honors College at Norfolk State University. prlaws@aya.yale.edu.

Read the Full Interview Here at The Virginian-Pilot Online

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If you go

When: Various dates through Dec. 29

Where: The Wells Theatre, 108 E. Tazewell St., Norfolk

Tickets: Start at $15

Details: 757-627-1234, vastage.org

HR Show Holiday Special | The Gift of Theatre

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) – It’s a double dose of holiday magic at the theatre thanks to Virginia Stage Company. Steve Pacek, director for “A Sherlock Carol” and an actor in “A Merry Little Christmas Carol,” and Rachel Fobbs who acts in both productions, joined us to share more about what fans can expect to see on the stage.

Virginia Stage Company
“A Merry Little Christmas Carol”: Dec. 8-23
“A Sherlock Carol”: select days Dec. 4-29
The Historic Wells Theatre: 108 East Tazewell St., Norfolk
757-627-1234
VAStage.org

This segment of The Hampton Roads Show is sponsored by Virginia Stage Company.