On Friday, Dec. 9, the Newtowne Players opened with their final performance for the year, at Three Notch Theatre. The theatre opened in April with the comedy, Cheaters by Marc Jacobs, and has been gaining momentum with each new show. The Christmas production, Inspecting Carol by Daniel Sullivan and the Seattle Repertory Company marks the fifth show in Three Notch Theatre. The Newtowne Players have put their comedy shoes back on to finish out the year with a bang under the direction of Wendy Heidrich.

The show opens on the set of a small town community theatre stage in Lexington Park preparing for A Christmas Carol. The ensemble cast, with carefully choreographed sequences and well-timed laughs, interspersed with seasonal music, keeps the audience on its toes.

 
Zorah (More) tries to charm an increasingly perplexed Wayne (Carrier)
-The Bay Net Photo by Anna Bedford

The director of the fictitious play, ‘Zorah’ (V. Lynn Moore), is on a mission “to bring Lexington park, no, St. Mary’s County, the best damn play they’ve ever seen.” However, her vision for the performance is jeopardized at each turn by dwindling subscribers, the fear of losing grant money, conflicts amongst the cast, and attempts to hijack the script.

Chaos is already brewing in the small theatre when an aspiring actor, ‘Wayne’ (Daniel Carrier) is presumed to be an undercover inspector from the National Endowment of the Arts. The hapless Wayne gives a farcical audition that leaves the cast in no doubt that his profession lies elsewhere, and the bankrupt company does all it can to win his approval and his supposed grant money. Wayne is invited to join the company and his suggestions and script changes are met with little resistance.

The bedlam is great and rehearsal time short.  Among the distractions are not-so-tiny Tim’s budding professional career (Dieter Heidrich & Alex Knight), Phil (Joe Stover) with his unrequited infatuation with Zora and his accumulating injuries from carrying the growing Tim, and ‘Larry’ (Rob Watts), a rogue actor who believes “the actor must empower himself”  and attempts to imbue A Christmas Carol with a variety of political messages.

 
Scrooge (Rob Watts) peers at the Ghost of the Past (Frank Gomez) – A Third World baby with his Piñata of Hope   
                  The Bay Net Photo by Anna Bedford

Hilarity piles on hilarity when Zorah embarks on a multicultural initiative, following the National Endowment’s suggestions for diversity, and casts ‘Victor’ (Frank Gomez) as all of the ghosts. ‘Victor’ becomes increasingly funny as he endures script changes from both Larry and Wayne. Scenes to watch for include Jennifer Paris as ‘Dorothy’/‘Mrs. Crachit’, the theatre’s vocal consultant, warming up the cast with lemons (!) and Larry’s renditions of Scrooge, and some unusually manifested ghosts.

When the real inspector (Dana Briscoe) finally makes an appearance, the company is in shambles and is fo