An adaptation by Grant Kretchik of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” with puppets, dance and music is the talk of the town.
The production appeared TWICE during the week of December 8 in The New York Times – The Community Affairs Calendar and Seasonal Revels (Arts). It also got a “double play” on BroadwayWorld.com – “Pace University & The Dept of Performing Arts Presents A CHRISTMAS CAROL” and “Pace University Confronts the AIDS Crisis With BC/EFA.”
Time Out New York featured the actors/carolers/dancers participation in the South Street Seaport Tree Lighting event, as well as recommended the play in their separate Time Out New York KIDS edition. TheaterMania came out with the most comprehensive play information, naming every person in the cast/crew AND their role … along with featuring the show entirely in the lead paragraph of the article, “Kids Spotlight: Carol Channeling,” which was also picked up by USA Today among others.
Single mentions (many with photos) included the NY Daily News, Stamford Advocate, Greenwich Time, New York Social Diary, WNBC-TV, NY1, NYC.com, Shecky’s NYC Nightlife, The Broadsheet Daily, Downtown Alliance, DGuides, Tribeca Tribune, NYTheatre.com, Mommy Poppins, PARENTGUIDE News, A Child Grows in Brooklyn and PeaTot.
The Seaport Inn promoted Pace’s “A Christmas Carol” on their website, noting to tourists that the Schimmel Theater was ” Walking distance from our front door.”
Student actors were featured in their hometown newspapers: Niko Papastefanou (Scrooge) from Montgomery, NY near the Hudson River Valley and Catskill Mountains was profiled in the Times-Herald Record; Chris Barba (Fred, Scrooge’s nephew) who hails from a seacoast town in Plymouth County, MA was interviewed by the Scituate Mariner; Chris Fayne (Bob Cratchit) from Egg Head Township in NJ was named a “person of the week” by Shore News Today; and Daniel Rings (Gentleman, Clerk and Caroler) was applauded by Michigan’s Midland Daily News in the article, “Midland Actor Takes Stage in New York.” The Times-Herald Record and Midland Daily News also ran the cast photo.
Grant Kretchik, who directed the adaptation of “A Christmas Carol,” spoke about the production in interviews with the New York Observer’s supplement, The Educated Observer, as well as his own Hawley, PA, hometown newspaper, The News Eagle.
Additionally buzz was provided by the South Street Seaport’s full page ad promoting the message “Spend Your Holidays at the Seaport” and highlighting “Pace University’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ appearance at the Tree Lighting Spectacular on November 26. The ad appeared on the back page of AM New York, The Downtown Express and other local newspapers.