Every Brilliant Thing | Returning to The Wells Theatre Stage

April 24 - 27

Returning to The Wells by Popular Demand! 

This powerful story is told from the perspective of a single performer. An immersive storytelling experience performed in the round that blends comedy, improv, and audience interaction to tell the story of someone growing up in the shadow of their mother's struggle with suicidal depression while learning to grapple with their own journey. Every Brilliant Thing provides a life-affirming jolt of humanism, reminding us that hope comes from the miracles of life’s minutiae.

This transformative production has been touring across Hampton Roads, and throughout the East Coast, faciliating this impactful story for military, navy, assisted living, colleges, and other communities. Through Sentara Health Plans’ generous support, this touring production has touched lives of thousands with more than 70+ performances.

Enjoy this uniquely innovative and inspired experience ON THE WELLS STAGE

THE ROAD SO FAR…

Jeffrey Meanza and Kathryn Hunter-Williams in VSC’s Spring 2022 mainstage production of Every Brilliant Thing.

FAT HAM | Cast & Creative Team

CAST

MARCUS ANTONIO*

(Juicy) is excited to join Virginia Stage Company’s production of Fat Ham! Off-Broadway: Titanique (Iceberg); Regional: Aida (Weathervane Playhouse). Born and raised in Atlanta, he gives many thanks to his family in Georgia for their endless support. Shoutout to Dave Secor and the Daniel Hoff Team. :) Insta: @marcus.antonio_

CANDICE HEIDELBERG

(Rabby) is thrilled to be making her debut at Virginia Stage Company in Fat Ham. Candice has been a performing artist and educator, in theatre, music, and media arts for over three decades. She has an MFA in Acting from Regent University, and has studied theatrical movement with Eric Harrell, and stage combat with Dr. Michael Kirkland. Theatre Credits include: The Blood Cycle (Zeiders Proteus New Plays Festival), Silent Sky (Regent University), The Servant of Two Masters (Edinburgh Fringe Festival). Film Credits: A Place Called Home (Independent Film), Tender Wounds (Regent Graduate Film), Time of Ashes (Independent Film). TV Credits: GizmoGo- Superbook (CBN Studios). She would like to thank the creative team and Jerrell for this opportunity to feed her artistic soul.

CLOTEAL L. HORNE*

(Tedra) (Her/She) Is thrilled to be making her Virginia Stage Debut! Her body of work includes. Upcoming: Blues for an Alabama Sky - Angel (Trinity Rep.) TV: Grey’s Anatomy, Recurring Guest Star, Season 19 and 20. Selected credits include, Off-Broadway/New York: The Convent of Pleasure (Red Bull Theatre); Cross that River (Marcus Garvey Amphitheater); The Steadfast (Slant Theatre Project); Dirty Blood (Billie Holiday Theatre). To name a few, her Regional Credits include:  Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare Theatre Company). Fires in the Mirror, Solo Performer (Long Wharf/ Baltimore Center Stage); The Bluest Eye, BlueShift, (Huntington); She A Gem, (NYTW). Black Odyssey (Trinity Rep.) Hang (Shakespeare & Co.); Saturday Night/Sunday Morning (LyricStage, Elliot Norton Nominee) Film: Stay Here with Me (Tuli Media), The Promotion (C1 Media), What we Owe Each Other (RISDI), Driving While Black Magic. . I am a product of my grandmother’s prayers + my ancestors’ wildest dreams. Glory be. Holds a B.F.A in Acting from BU and a M.F.A in Acting from Brown University/Trinity Rep.  www.cloteallhorne.com

ADAM E. MOSKOWITZ*

(Tio) is pleasured to join the cast of Fat Ham. Adam is a proud native of Prince George’s County, Maryland, and a graduating Drama & Theatre major at Norfolk State University. He is also a member of the Norfolk State University Theatre Company. He has previously appeared in NSU Theatre Company/Virginia Stage Company co-productions which include Dreamgirls, Henry V, and The Three Musketeers; NSU credits include, The Color Purple, Skeleton Crew, Thoughts of a Colored Man and A Soldier’s Play (co-pro with Virginia Arts Festival). He has also appeared in The Tempest with Shakespeare in the Grove. Adam would like to thank God, his mother, and family for their support. Adam plans to continue developing his craft in graduate school. To follow his journey, visit his website at www.aemoskowitz.com and Instagram @adam.moskowitzofficial. “Have a belief in yourself that is bigger than anyone’s disbelief.” ~ August Wilson

JORDAN PEARSON*

(Larry) is honored to join Virginia Stage Company’s production of Fat Ham. Acting Credits include: Gloria (Gloucester Stage Company), Seared (Gloucester Stage Company), TJ Loves Sally 4 Ever (Speakeasy Stage Company), Insulted Belarus (Arlekin Players Theatre), and Akeelah and the Bee (Virginia Repertory Theatre). Film Credits: Golden (Universal). Contemporary Theater graduate of the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. He would like to thank his entire village for their unwavering love and support. Jordan dedicates this performance to those who have never truly felt seen or heard, and to those whose stories are still waiting to be told.

JANAE THOMPSON

(Opal) is ecstatic to make her Virginia Stage Company main stage debut. Janae is a former company member of VSC's GreenBeats, Live. Recent performance credits include Imagine (REACH at Kennedy Center), Rathskeller (The Z), Evita (VMT), The Little Mermaid (VMT), Refraction of Light (The Z) and the Inheritance Theatre Project’s Emmy Award-winning Exodus: Homecoming. In the theatrical community, she serves as Communications Coordinator for ROŪGE: Theater Reinvented, collaborator of UPAC, and Repertory Member for the Canady Foundation for the Arts. She also serves on the Advisory Council for Gen MOCA and WHRO’s Emerging Leaders Board. Janae is a graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy and Full Sail for Film and Video. Janae thanks her family and friends for their continued love and support! JanaeThompson.com

KEVIN CRAIG WEST*

(Pap/Rev) is excited to join Virginia Stage Company's production of Fat Ham. Theatrical Credits include: Hymn (Shakespeare & Company), Dracula (Actor's Theatre), Metamorphoses (Capital Rep), Judevine (Oldcastle Theatre). Film Credits include: Don't Look Up (Netflix), Spirited (Apple Studios), Summer of 69 (Hulu), Finestkind (Paramount+). TV Credits include: Law & Order Organized Crime (NBC), The Blacklist (NBC), New Amsterdam (NBC), and look for him in the new season's of Power Book III Raising Kanan (STARZ), Daredevil Born Again (Marvel Studios) and Black Rabbit (Netflix). Kevin thanks his family and friends for their incredible love and support. 

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CREATIVES

JERRELL L. HENDERSON†

(Director) is a director, puppeteer and African American Theatre historian and archivist. He recently staged his original shadow play, AmericanMYTH: Crossroads at Free Street Theatre (League of Chicago Theatre's 2022 Samuel G. Roberson, Jr. Fellowship, Jim Henson Foundation Workshop Grant, Chicago DCASE grant). Other directing credits include Constellations at Penobscot Theatre, Blues for an Alabama Sky at Virginia Stage Company, and The Prodigal Daughter at Raven Theatre. Other directing credits include Ragtime at Metropolis Performing Arts Centre, Reverie by James Ijames with Azuka Theatre, and Mlima’s Tale with Griffin Theatre (Jeff Award nomination for Direction and Best Play). He co-developed and co-staged both Little Amal Drifts Off To Sleep with ChiPuppets in Maggie Daley Park, Chicago, and When the World Sounds like a Prayer (with Little Amal) with the Classical Theatre of Harlem and St. Ann's Warehouse in Bryant Park, NYC. Puppet short films include I Am The Bear with The Chicago International Puppet Theatre Festival, Hamlin: La Revue Sombre with Heather Henson’s Handmade Puppet Dreams, and Diamond’s Dream with Chicago Children’s Theatre. He received his MFA in Theatre Directing from Northwestern University (2015). Jerrell is the creator/curator of  black_theatre_vinyl_archive on IG. He is represented by the Gurman Agency (susan@gurmanagency.com).

JAMES IJAMES

(Playwright) is an American playwright, actor, and professor originally from Bessemer City, North Carolina. He received his B.A. in Drama from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, and earned his MFA in Acting from Temple University in Philadelphia, where he is now based. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Villanova University and former co-artistic director of the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia. Ijames is a founding member of Orbiter 3, Philadelphia's first playwright producing collective. His adaptation of Hamlet, titled Fat Ham, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2022 after premiering as a "digital production" at the Wilma in 2021. A second production ran at The Public Theater during the summer of 2022, before opening on Broadway in April 2023. He is the recipient of the 2018 Whiting Award for drama and the F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Philadelphia Theatre Artist.

CAITLIN MCLEOD

(Scenic Designer) is a Chicago based costume, scenic, and puppet designer. Recent design credits include: Into the Breeches (Little Theatre VA Beach); The Little Mermaid  (Drury Lane); Lavender Men (About Face); Blues for an Alabama Sky (Virginia Stage Co); What the Constitution Means to Me (Copley Theatre, Aurora); The Dream King (Teatro Vista); The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show (Chicago Children's); Trouble in Mind (Timeline); The Seagull (Steppenwolf); Exquisite Corpse (Rough House); Stick Fly (Writers Theatre). Craftwork credits include The Goodman, The Kennedy Center, Lookingglass, and Northlight. Caitlin is a co-curator of NBS: Chicago’s Puppet Slam, company member of Rough House, and project manager of the Chicago Puppet Studio. Instagram @CaitlinMcLeodDesign

NIA SAFARR BANKS §

(Costume Designer) is a Costume Designer and Educator. Her design work has been seen in various productions, including William Shakespeare’s Hamlet at American Shakespeare Center, August Wilson’s Fences at Shakespeare and Company, and Self Portrait (Deluxe) at The Bushwick Starr. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Costume Design from Boston University in 2023, and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2019. She has been nominated for two Richmond Critic Awards for her outstanding work in Costume Design, for both An Octoroon (2019) and A Christmas Kaddish (2022).  She’s excited to be back at Virginia Stage Company.

JASON LYNCH §

(Lighting Designer)  is a Chicago-based lighting designer for theatre, dance, opera, and other live performance art, and makes his Virginia Stage Company debut with this production.Regional: Alley Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, City Theatre Company, Court Theatre, Dallas Theater Center, Denver Center Theatre Company, George Street Playhouse, Geva Theatre Center, Goodman Theatre, Goodspeed Musicals, The Guthrie Theater, Huntington Theatre Company, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, McCarter Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Northlight Theatre, The Old Globe, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Seattle Repertory Company, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and Trinity Repertory Company. He was the recipient of the 2022 Equity Jeff Award for his work on Choir Boy at Steppenwolf Theatre Company and the 2019 Michael Maggio Emerging Designer Award, which recognizes emerging theatrical designers within the Chicago area. Jason is also honored to have his work on the Goodman Theatre’s real-time, online ‘Live’ series (The Sound Inside, Ohio State Murders, and I Hate It Here) and an immersive 360° production of The Wild Party at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts featured in American Theatre Magazine. Lynch is represented by The Gersh Agency. jasondlynch.com | @jasonlynch.design

Sartje Pickett §

(Sound Designer) is a composer & sound designer for theater, film and interactive storytelling. Pickett is the co-founder of the sound design collective District 5 Sound, which specializes in sound design for immersive and interactive storytelling environments. Her work in this area has provided opportunities to develop skills in coding, embedded electronics, and spatialized audio through ambisonic capture, processing, and delivery. Performance has been a lifelong passion, and she continues to develop projects that incorporate live elements culminating in performance-driven responsive design. Some national theater credits include -  Virginia Stage Company: Three Musketeers; American Players Theater: Much Ado About Nothing, Dancing at Lughnasa, Proof, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Love’s Labours Lost, Cyrano, Mary’s Wedding & Les Liaisons Dangereuses; Milwaukee Rep & Kansas City Rep: Nina Simone: Four Women; The Guthrie: Twelfth Night, The Great Leap; Indiana Repertory: Shakespeare’s Will; Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream & Richard III; Trinity Rep: Ms. Homes & Ms. Watson - Apt. 2b; Yale Repertory Theater: Hamlet, Death of a Salesman & A Delicate Balance. Bricolage Production Company: DODO, Welcome to Here, Immersive Encounters: The Ascendants; City Theater: Cry it Out; Pittsburgh Public: A Christmas Story.

Review: A merry little Christmas mash-up in Virginia Stage Company’s ‘A Sherlock Carol’

By Paige Laws

The humbug is afoot!

You’d better check your Christmas stockings for Easter eggs, theater parlance for referencing one play in another.

The Virginia Stage Co. has produced Mark Shanahan’s version of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” — “A Merry Little Christmas Carol” — since 2021. Shanahan has also written a sequel, “A Sherlock Carol.” His sometimes sweet, sometimes silly, but always clever sequel is based on Dickens’ classic but mashed up with A. Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” (1892). Confused yet? Fear not.

The shows are running in rep, meaning they are being performed at different times in the same weeks (“A Merry Little Christmas Carol” runs through Dec. 23) with the same set and, mostly, the same cast.

It’s, at first, a most unlikely sounding combo — Dickens and Doyle — but Shanahan makes it make marvelous sense. Scrooge (especially before his Christmas redemption) and Sherlock share one overwhelming character trait: narcissism. Think of it as “The Miser and the Analyzer: A Tale of Two Narcissists.” (Note that critics love hiding Easter eggs, too.) Dickens published “Carol” in 1843 and “A Tale of Two Cities” in 1859. Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes works span 1887 to 1927.

What is afoot in London, 1894, the setting for “A Sherlock Carol”?

Well, the play’s first lines are “Moriarty is dead to begin with. Moriarity is dead.” Sound familiar? Well, the beginning of Dickens’ “Carol” is “Marley was dead: to begin with.” Marley was Scrooge’s long-dead partner, who comes in ghostly form to save Scrooge’s soul. The similar-sounding Moriarty is Holmes’ longtime nemesis, the “Napoleon of Crime,” recently killed in a struggle with Holmes at Reichenbach Falls. But our Holmes here is still haunted by the ghost of Moriarity. He’s so obsessed that Holmes thinks he still sees him fleeing around corners. The play begins with Holmes in a downward spiral of depression, alienated from his only friend Dr. Watson (now happily married). Things look bleak for the world’s greatest detective.

Beatty Barnes, the resilient stand-up comic and tragedian, plays Scrooge in both. The other mostly Equity main cast double also (except Scott Wichmann playing Sherlock Holmes).  Tiny Tim is played by a child in “A Merry Little Christmas Carol,” but is an adult in “A Sherlock Carol” since it’s set two decades later. But didn’t you always wonder what would become of Tiny Tim? Now you’ll know! He becomes a slightly limping Dr. Tim Cratchit, head of a struggling children’s home and hospital.

The doubling, tripling and quadrupling of roles, within and among the plays, is possible because of conventions of story theater (or Epic theater, for loyal Brechtians). Characters engage with one another within the world of the play but also directly address the audience.

The fun is, of course, in recognizing the parallels between two characters’ lives in an adventure designed for them. The similarities and differences ricochet off one another. The more you know of the two “old” characters, the more you’ll try vicariously to save them — from themselves. The audience becomes a vital part of the process by wanting a good “future” for our fictitious friends and dreading their destruction which would equal an attack on our great literary canon.

A less charitable way to view unusual adaptations of the classics is to consider them as a kind of author hacking. Kate Hamill (author of the VSC’s recent “Dracula, A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really”) can be seen as a hacker of Bram Stoker and, often, Jane Austen. Shanahan can be seen as a hacker of Dickens and Doyle.

But, in this case, the hack is so ingenious, so wry, so self-conscious of its “invasive” moves that it works. It entertains. It uplifts rather than denigrates its precious classic sources. Dickens and Doyle are tough enough to take this sort of ribbing. It’s almost like a Great Authors’ roast. The more you know and love your Dickens and Doyle, the more you should appreciate this tribute. And, if you don’t know much about them, you’ll learn more.

Ideally, see both shows, but, at least, see the newer of the two. Remember to take along your Easter basket.

Page Laws is dean emerita of the Nusbaum Honors College at Norfolk State University. prlaws@aya.yale.edu.

Read the Full Interview Here at The Virginian-Pilot Online

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If you go

When: Various dates through Dec. 29

Where: The Wells Theatre, 108 E. Tazewell St., Norfolk

Tickets: Start at $15

Details: 757-627-1234, vastage.org

HR Show Holiday Special | The Gift of Theatre

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) – It’s a double dose of holiday magic at the theatre thanks to Virginia Stage Company. Steve Pacek, director for “A Sherlock Carol” and an actor in “A Merry Little Christmas Carol,” and Rachel Fobbs who acts in both productions, joined us to share more about what fans can expect to see on the stage.

Virginia Stage Company
“A Merry Little Christmas Carol”: Dec. 8-23
“A Sherlock Carol”: select days Dec. 4-29
The Historic Wells Theatre: 108 East Tazewell St., Norfolk
757-627-1234
VAStage.org

This segment of The Hampton Roads Show is sponsored by Virginia Stage Company.

VEER Arts Preview | A Carol or Two from Virginia Stage Company

By Jerome Langston

The Cast and Production Stage Management Team of Virginia Stage Company’s A Sherlock Carol : (L-R)Patrick Halley, Scott Wichmann, Seth Patterson, Steve Pacek, Sarah Manton, Beatty Barnes, Tia Collier, Emma D. Emde, Rachel Fobbs, and Abbigail LaRocque. Photo by TOC Creative/Glenn Fajota. 

“He’s one of my constants. So anything that he does, I’m just immediately drawn to,” says Steve Pacek, the Philly actor, playwright, and director — regarding his creative partnership with acclaimed playwright and actor, Mark Shanahan. It’s late on an unseasonably warm Thursday, and Steve, along with actor Scott Wichmann, have called me to chat about A Sherlock Carol, the highly inventive holiday play being produced by Virginia Stage Company, and performing in rep with their annual holiday classic, A Merry Little Christmas Carol. Steve is directing A Sherlock Carol and is one of the actors starring in this year’s Christmas Carol, both of which are penned by Mark Shanahan, whom Steve has built both a long-running friendship and artistic partnership with.

It’s quite fitting then, that this hit Shanahan holiday show, marks Steve’s mainstage directorial debut at the Wells Theatre, following his lauded work as an actor in a number of prior VSC productions, including last season’s Dial M for Murder and The Legend of Georgia McBride, which was a stand-out in season 41. Scott, previously of Richmond fame as both an actor and musical performer, is now based in Hampton Roads with his wife, who is also an actor. Scott plays the lead role of Sherlock Holmes in A Sherlock Carol. Today is the second day of staging for the show, and these two artistic gentlemen are chatting with me during an evening break in rehearsal. And though they haven’t known each other for a very long time, Steve and Scott clearly have the chemistry of brothers, who share the same creative passions. I ask the director how he came to this project, and what A Sherlock Carol, is really about.

Read the full article on Veer’s Website HERE

WANT TO GO?

A Sherlock Carol, December 4 – 29 

A Merry Little Christmas Carol, December 8 – 23 

Presented by Virginia Stage Company 

Wells Theatre 

vastage.org  

Jerome L. Langston is a widely published arts and culture writer, who has written for Port Folio Weekly, The Virginian-Pilot, Style Weekly, and the Washington City Paper. Currently he covers theatre and music for Veer Magazine.

CoastLive | A Discussion on VSC's Two High-Spirited Holiday Hits

By: Coast Live

HAMPTON ROADS, Va. — Playwright Mark Shanahan ("A Merry Little Christmas Carol," "A Sherlock Carol") and actor Scott Wichmann (Sherlock Holmes) join Coast Live to chat with Chandler Nunnally about the two holiday shows running in tandem at the historic Wells Theatre in Norfolk, sweeping away visitors with stunning stagecraft, brilliant production, and heartfelt Christmas spirit.

"A Merry Little Christmas Carol"
by Mark Shanahan

Adapted from the novella by Charles Dickens

December 8 - December 23, 2024

The time-honored holiday tradition returns to the Wells to bring a heartfelt holiday to Hampton Roads once again! Dance and sing your way with Scrooge as he journeys through his life alongside the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future to find the real Christmas spirit that he’s always been missing…his own. Join the thousands of Hampton Roads families and friends who make the Wells their home for the holidays!

"A Sherlock Carol"
by Mark Shanahan

December 4 - December 29, 2024

Murder, Mystery, Music, and Merriment meet on the Wells stage this holiday season with Mark Shanahan’s joyful and clever A Sherlock Carol. Moriarty is dead, to begin with, and Sherlock is a haunted man. But when a grown Tiny Tim comes knocking on his door asking for an investigation into the untimely death of Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge, the Great Detective must use his gifts to solve a Dickens of a Christmas mystery! Uncover the mystery through this jovial journey in one of the best places to be during the holiday season…Why the Wells Theatre, of course! It’s simply Elementary!

For showtimes and tickets, visit vastage.org, or call the box office at (757) 627-1234.