When Summit City Music Theatre began putting on their production of A Christmas Carol at Salomon Farm Park, Artistic Director Gavin Thomas Drew wanted it to become a holiday tradition. Well, on Friday, Dec. 6, the show returns for its third straight year, and with many shows selling out last year, don’t delay in getting your ticket this time around.

“Tickets sell very, very fast, and it’s limited capacity,” Drew said of the show in The Old Barn, which seats 110. “So, you gotta get them early.”

The show will run two weekends, from Friday, Dec. 6, to Sunday, Dec. 15, so don’t miss your chance to see this holiday classic in a unique setting.

Returning as scrooge

Just as A Christmas Carol is a familiar story, with the bah-humbugging Ebenezer Scrooge changing his tune after being visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, Summit City Music Theatre have a familiar face playing said character — Caleb Curtis.

An original swing, Curtis stepped up when the initial Scrooge actor stepped away in 2022. Since then, the role has been all his.

“Ever since then, it’s been, ‘Well, if it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it,’ ” Curtis said. 

“The most interesting part of the whole scenario is that now I’m a 28-year-old, and at the time I was 25 playing a man that is significantly older than me. And that happens in high school and college, but I think it made it extremely interesting when you consider there are several people in this production that are significantly older than I am. Yet, I am playing what is supposed to be the oldest person in the show.”

For Drew, Curtis’ age was never an issue.

“He is an incredibly gifted actor,” Drew said. “I would say he is one of the best, if not the best, in Fort Wayne. He’s just a really, really talented guy. He came out and auditioned, and I thought with a little makeup and a wig, this might just be our Scrooge.”

Along with the makeup and wig, Curtis does his part to portray the old curmudgeon.

“I don’t know if you’ve seen The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but I can promise you that Brad Pitt was not 87 years old,” Curtis said of the 2008 film of a character aging in reverse. “So, it is a lot on the actor. Whether that be in their voice, their physicality and movements. Makeup and costume certainly do help, as I get a wig and some mutton chops, but half of it is, you have to do your job.”

Tradition for cast members

Along with Curtis, there are more local actors returning to the show.

Among those returning to their roles are Tony Didier (Bob Cratchit), Jesse Holt (Fred), Michael Paff (Tim Cratchit), Paul Blackman (Joe), and Karen Herendeen (Caroline). Other returning but with different roles are Kristen Holt, Sarrazine Prough, Jen Poiry Prough, Jack Christian, Jeanne Hanford, Elijah Stark, Faye Holt, Doris Hawley, Alina Brinker, Mia Paris, Roberta Schmidt, and Amy Springer.

“We like to say this show is Fort Wayne’s newest Christmas tradition,” Drew said. “It’s a tradition for audiences, but it’s also a tradition for the cast members.”

The acting is only half of the experience in The Old Barn. Set designer Chapman Shields went to great lengths to bring A Christmas Carol to life.

“It was very important to him that it reflect the location that we’re doing the show in,” Drew said of his friend from Oklahoma. “So, the whole set is wooden and it matches the barn’s wood. It’s kind of hard to tell where the barn ends and the set begins.”

For Curtis, that attention to detail pays off.

“There’s something magical about not just stepping into a theater and looking at a stage, but feeling as if you’ve stepped into the world of the play,” he said. “One of the things that makes this particular production so different and so remarkable is that the second you open the barn door, you feel like you’re in (the play). You’re in a historic building that was built in the 1800s and you’re seeing a story that was written in the 1800s.

“And the way that our fabulous set designer and set builders have constructed this set, you look at it, and it doesn’t feel like it’s a barn. You kind of question, ‘Wait, was that supposed to be here?’ 

“You see the modern lights. Corey Lee, our lighting designer, is quite literally the closest thing to a magician that I know. The way that he’s able to rig up the lights in this space and make it seem like we’re performing it in an actual theater is quite insane to me.”

The rest of the design team consists of Jeremy Bugge on sound, Kelly Gomes and Jill Bixler doing costumes, and Jennifer and Lee Beineke serving as stage managers.

Story remains relevant

All the work on and off stage helps tell a story that Curtis feels is timeless.

“A Christmas Carol is for theater, what The Nutcracker is for ballet,” he said. “It’s a story that gets told over and over again. When you have stories like that, you can become a little numb to them. You think, ‘Oh man, another one?’ But then you see it and remind yourself, ‘Oh, that’s why this story has survived 150 years.’ It’s because it’s still as magical and as important of a story to tell as it was 150 years ago.”

He’s also able to see Scrooge as something more than … well … a scrooge.

“One the beautiful yet terrible things about human nature is that history is a cycle and people as a whole are … people,” he said. “I think it’s incredibly timely because Scrooge is a man that over the course of his life, he has his reasons, he has his trauma, he has his things that have happened to him. But he is a man that is not intentionally evil. I don’t think that he walks around in his daily life saying to himself, ‘I’m going to do the most despicable, evil thing that I can.’ I think that he is a man that has succumbed to the not-so-great things in the world. I think he’s chosen to actively see all the negative in the world, and that affects how he deals with people. 

“He is a man who is ‘self-made.’ So, he believes he has earned what he’s earned. He has a right to it, and those who do not follow the path that he directly did are lazy and don’t deserve it.”

For Drew, the message also rings just as true in 2024 as when Charles Dickens wrote the tale in 1843, and their setting is ideal.

“It’s a family classic,” he said. “It’s something that you can bring the whole family to. But beyond that, it is so cool the way that we present it in Salomon Farm Park’s Old Barn. It is like an immersive experience. It’s kind of like the audience in the show. Now, we won’t ask you to participate or anything, but the show kind of unfolds around you. So, you’re right there in the thick of it.”