Scene Changes

by Donald Tongue

It's a Broadway traveling show, a theatrical purgatory, and the only reason any of us are here is because we failed to land a role in a production without wheels!

So explains Samantha Wheelwright, ex-Brit, star of stage and film, but whose faltering career has landed her in the role of Mrs. Cratchit in a traveling production of A Christmas Carol. Her co-star playing Bob Cratchit has taken ill and is in hospital in Burlington, VT. When the show arrives in Concord NH the producer is forced to hire a young local actor. Enter Matthew Simmons, whose presence creates an unlikely pairing that immediately erupts into a colossal clash of wills as star-struck youthful enthusiasm slams headlong into mid-life cynical realism -- and the scene changes.

Hatbox Theatre
Concord NH
January 6-22

Starring...

Alex Picard -------------- SAMANTHA WHEELWRIGHT
Ian Allan ----------------- MATTHEW SIMMONS

Production Team...

Donald Tongue -------------- Director
Kelsee Allan ------------------ Stage Manager 

Designers...

Donald Tongue ----------------- Props, Lighting, and Sound
Joan Vick ----------------------- Costumes
Ian Harte -----------------------  Set 

Donald Tongue (Playwright, Director, Lighting and Sound) has four published plays to his credit.  His most produced work, Void, has been produced in Boston and Los Angeles.  School Portrait Monologues was produced in New Zealand. Fishbowl was part of the 2010 short play festival in New York City at the Manhattan Repertory Theatre, where it was held over for an extended run.  My Neighbor, the Poet, a play about Robert Frost, was commissioned and produced by theatre KAPOW in October 2010. A Time, Twice Upon, was developed as part of a playwrights’ collaborative sponsored by theatre KAPOW. Scene Changes was a featured work in the Page to Stage Encore production, Concord NH, produced at the Firehouse Center for the Arts 2012 New Works Festival, Newburyport MA, and produced at the Leddy Center for their 2015 Showcase Production series, Epping NH. Candid Candidate was produced at the Leddy Center for their 2016 Showcase Production series, Epping NH, and was later produced in October 2016 at the Hatbox Theatre, Concord NH. The Truth Will Spring Yuh was produced at the 2014 NHCTA Festival, Concord NH, and received its premiere full production in April 2017 at the Hatbox Theatre, Concord NH. Donald is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America. You can find many of his plays at the New Play Exchange.

Cast...

Alex Picard (Samantha) is an Audiobook Narrator and Voice Over Artist who holds and MFA in Theatre from the University of Illinois. As a company member with the Open Door Theatre she has performed in many of Shakespeare’s works including As You Like It, A Winter’s Tale, King Lear, Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Much Ado about Nothing, and most recently as Barbara in August, Osage County. Alex served as the Managing Director of the Devanaughn Theatre in Boston, where she also appeared in Bella Donna, Closer, How I Learned to Drive and others. Picard acted professionally in the Boston area with such companies as The Gloucester Stage Company with Israel Horovitz in the English language premiere of his play Compromise, as well as The Huntington Theatre as a resident understudy which included serving as the understudy for Lisa Kron in Well, among other credits.  She is the creator of The Hope Project: An Exercise in Listening, and developed Allowables, poetry of witness focusing on marginalized voices in the United States, with support from a grant from Project Pericles.  Allowables was recognized at the AAC&U conference in Washington D.C.  Picard studied at the Krannert Center at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she worked with Tony Award winning director Dan Sullivan, playwright Lee Blessing, and participated in an intensive residency with Ann Bogart’s CITI Company. While not in production or recording in her home studio, she spends her Friday nights eating pizza and watching Netflix with her husband, the real Captain Picard, and their two daughters.

Ian Allan (Matthew) is a company member with the Open Door Theatre where he has performed in several of Shakespeare’s works including The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, King Lear, A Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, and Twelfth Night. Ian has also appeared at the Hatbox Theater in prior productions of Macbeth, Twelfth Night, and Fade. He also appeared in productions of Urinetown, Footloose, and Children of Eden for the former Stoneham Theater, now known as Greater Boston Stage Company, in Stoneham, Massachusetts. Ian also has several movie credits under his name as extras, including Equalizer as Russian Thug #4. Allan works for PConnection Inc as a Credit Card Analyst and when he’s not acting, he’s writing on several different fronts with his wife, Kelsee, who has annoyingly become his muse. He thanks his family and friends for all their continued love and support and he is very excited to be working with the New World Theatre company.

Production Team...

Kelsee Allan (Stage Manager) is originally from Los Angeles, California, and has a background primarily in film, voice, and musical performance. At Hatbox Theatre, she has performed as Viola in Twelfth Night (2019), as well as various roles in Macbeth (2018), and dual roles on and off stage for Fade (2019) as both actor and assistant stage manager. Other performances of note include Constance in The Three Musketeers with Nashua Theatre Guild (2018), Christine Daae in Phantom of the Opera with the Bellflower Civic Chorus (2014), and Faith Daniels in the Zillo: Rising original Star Wars audio drama fan series with Bombad Radio (2015-2019).

Designers...

Donald Tongue (Props, Lighting, and Sound Designer) is an award-winning sound designer who has created the soundscape for numerous productions. Truth Will Spring Yuh, 2014 NH Community Theater Festival (Best Sound Design winner), Scene Changes, 2015 Leddy Center for the Performing Arts, Candid Candidate, 2016 New World Theatre. A Christmas Carol, 2016 Hatbox Theatre, Truth Will Spring Yuh, 2017 New World Theatre, When Colossus Falls, 2018 New World Theatre, and How It Works, 2020 Truepenny Arts.

Joan Vick (Costume Designer) has been making costumes for over 40 years, although she was the only one in her 7th grade Home Ec class to cut out her skirt on the selvage instead of the fold. (She has never done that again!) Trained at SUNY at Buffalo and the University of Michigan, Joan holds an MFA degree from Rutgers University. She has taught at Miami-Dade Community College and Bucknell University, and has been on staff at Amherst College and Syracuse University. Her regional work includes costume designs for Community Players of Concord, (Sweet Charity, Boeing, Boeing, and Philadelphia Story),Shakespeare and Company, (Othello) and New World Theatre in Amherst, Massachusetts, (Letters to a Student Revolutionary). She loves to do new works in hatbox size theaters.

Ian Harte (Set Designer) studied Theatre at New England College from 2011-2015. He now works at the college as the Assistant Technical Director. He has constructed sets for many plays, including Crimes of the Heart, Proof, and Much Ado About Nothing, just to name a few recent projects. Scene Changes will mark his first involvement with New World Theatre at the Hatbox Theatre.