COMIC RELIEF
Ready for a laugh already? This season’s holiday theater lineup is just the ticket.
By Jessica Santina
I
’m just gonna put this out there: It’s been a pretty sucky fall, and we’re entering the most stressful season of the year. Let’s all take a nice break, go Jasmie Jiang, Evonne Kezios and Ian Porterfield make up one of two different casts of Santaland Diaries. The play is based on David Sedaris’ memoir of his midadventures working at Macy’s Santaland and is now playing at Reno Little Theater.
sit in a darkened theater and feel merry about life for a while. The holiday theater season is in full swing, and the offerings at local theater companies will fill you to the brim with Christmas cheer.
PHOTO/ERIC MARKS
ButtCRaCkER 7: OzMOsIs
santaL and dIaRIEs
a ChRIstMas CaROL
Seasonal cheer can be a theater company’s bread and butter— even audiences who may not normally attend live theater find themselves drawn to holiday shows, where the feel-goodness is baked right in. “People really do tend to want to come to the theater during the holidays,” said Mary Bennett, Brüka’s Producing Artistic Director. “It’s one of the reasons we continue to do Buttcracker.” Now in its seventh iteration, Brüka’s parody of “The Nutcracker” might have Mr. Tchaikovsky rolling in his grave, but if it’s merry you want, you’ll find it here. Buttcracker’s basic premise is to—loosely—follow Tchaikovsky’s script: Young Clara’s crazy godfather Drosselmeyer gives her a toy nutcracker for Christmas, and in her dreams the nutcracker becomes a prince, takes her to the Land of Sweets and introduces her to characters who dance for her. Brüka’s story annually employs a different theme to tell this same journey story. This year’s Buttcracker 7: Ozmosis sets Clara on the yellow brick road that takes her to the warped Land of Oz, and the Ozians are the “sweets,” including the scarecrow, the tin man, the lion and even the wicked witch, all of whom try, and rarely succeed, to entertain her. Reserve your tickets ahead of time for this popular local favorite, and arrive a few minutes early to enjoy the whiskey bar. Just leave the kiddies 12 and under at home—this one’s a bit bawdy. Runs Wednesdays through Sundays until Dec. 23.
If the trappings of the holiday season are getting to you, carve out about 90 minutes for some catharsis with Joe Mantello’s stage adaptation of David Sedaris’ essay, Santaland Diaries. It’s the highly fictionalized story ripped from Sedaris’ journal about his time working as a Christmas elf named Crumpet at Macy’s Santaland. From the archetypal elven personalities and nightmare children to the celebrities he bumps into and the indignities he suffers at the hands of Santa, Sedaris lays Christmas bare—but also with a lot of heart and his signature self-reflective style, which might renew your faith in Santa after all. Reno Little Theater presents a double cast, with Evonne Kezios and Ryan Costello alternately playing the wisecracking Crumpet, and two different sets of players performing as the chorus of Macy’s characters. RLT is making it easy to see both casts with an online schedule for each posted on its website and ticket discounts for audiences who want to catch the other cast. A Christmas karaoke party follows each performance, and for those attending matinees, arrive early to browse the Holiday Bizarre Bazaar for gifts made by local artists. Runs now through Dec. 11. Check the website for specially priced performances.
If classic, family-friendly, holly-and-ivy Christmas shows are more your speed, visit one of Reno’s newest theater companies, Laughing Owl, which is making Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol an annual tradition. Founded in May 2015 by local theater veterans Dave and Angela Anderson, Laughing Owl is on a mission to produce classic theater as originally written—no modernizations, no musical adaptations, just good, timeless works from the likes of Beckett, Ibsen and more. This second-annual production of the Dickens favorite draws on the work of Sir John Mortimer, the English dramatist commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company to adapt it for the stage. In order to retain as much of the original novella as possible, Mortimer developed a chorus, with each line spoken by a different actor, conveying much of the narration and description written by Dickens himself. The sparse, simply furnished set is decorated by the audience’s imaginations. Fifteen actors perform the 50-some-odd characters in the story, save for Bob Gabrielli, the actor playing Ebenezer Scrooge. During intermission, local musician Branden McKinnon and several characters from the show, in dress, who will act as Victorian street musicians, will entertain audiences. The show runs Dec. 8-23.
Brüka Theatre
Tickets and information: www.bruka.org
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Reno Little Theater
Tickets and information: www.renolittletheater.org
Laughing Owl Productions Theatre Company
Tickets and information: www.laughingowlproductions.com
