Just finished up my director's notes for Christmas Carol

One of the first things I ever noticed about Christmas Carol was what a nice man Jacob Marley is.

No seriously.

He’s doomed to walk the earth forever. No chance of redemption. And yet, he still goes out of his way to try to convince his old ally to do better. He comes back as a ghost (which I can’t imagine is easy), gets three other associates together (I have to think magical spirits are busy, and on Christmas Eve this was a scheduling nightmare), and works to help out his friend. How many buddies do you have like that?

For me, this will equally be a play about reuniting old friends. I met David Keeton in the fall of 1992, and 3 years later we founded Dad’s Garage Theater. In 1996 I met Trent Blanton, and together, Dave, Trent and I worked on what would be the first show to put Dad's on the map. It turned out to be the show that launched all of our careers. As foolish, headstrong men we worked great together for a few years and then split up – I went off to a director career, Trent went on to tour with Les Mis for 10 years, and Dave went on to play music in Vegas and around the world – until now. This year’s Carol brings us back together for the first time. Same roles, just perhaps a year or two (or fifteen) older and wiser, but still with a decent amount of foolish headstrong rebellion under our belts.

They are good friends of mine, artists I deeply admire, but mainly, the reason I'm most excited to have them here: I trust that any of us would come back from the dead to warn the others.

Sean