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Spotlight on the Set

 

McCarter’s production of A Christmas Carol features a set by legendary scenic designer Ming Cho Lee. Lee’s set takes us to a variety of locations including Scrooge’s Childhood school, the poor but cozy Cratchit household, and the elegant home of Scrooge’s Nephew Fred. The set evokes London in 1843, then transports the audience backwards and forwards in time as the ghosts of Christmas Past and Future leads Scrooge on his journey.

 

 

Installing A Christmas Carol

In the weeks leading up to opening night, the McCarter crew puts in a TON of man- (and woman-) hours loading in the set of A Christmas Carol. During the year, the set sits in four 48-foot trailers that are parked outside of McCarter’s shop. Once a year, the staff loads the whole thing into the Matthews Theatre, from the show deck (the floor) to Scrooge’s front door (which flies in from above).

The biggest pieces of the set for A Christmas Carol are Scrooge’s Bedroom and the Counting House. During much of the show, the two pieces rest far upstage (with just enough room behind them for an actor to cross from one side of the stage to the other), and are masked by other set pieces in front of them (like the London backdrop, or the front door). The counting house itself weighs 2 tons, although when it was originally built it weighed approximately 3 tons. Since that time, the crew has re-built the top half of it to make it lighter.

The various moving set pieces of the show (including Scrooge’s Bedroom and the Counting House) are powered by a set of huge theatrical motors, each of which would cost around $35,000 if we were purchasing them new today. The motors control steel wires, which run underneath the show deck and pull the set pieces along their tracks. The motors are all controlled from a booth above the stage, which we call the “Lincoln Booth” (you can guess why). The Counting House sits on 40 wheels, each of which costs around $150. You can see how it all adds up.

The upstage side of both the Counting House and Scrooge’s Bedroom are filled with all sorts of electronics, pulleys, and wires, which variously control all of the “practical lights” (lights that double as set dressing - like lamps or sconces) and also the various “magical” things that happen during A Christmas Carol (like doors flying open, people appearing and disappearing, and hats popping out of trunks).

By Adam Immerwahr, Associate Producer