December and the Holidays

First of all, Happy Holidays to everyone from Theatre Sans Serif. It's been a crazy year, and it's still going strong right until the stroke of Midnight New Year's Eve. We still have one more performance of A Christmas Carol, Sunday December 19th, in the English Nationality Room at the Cathedral of Learning. Then, things kick into high gear for the 24 Hour Theatre Experiment with First Night Pittsburgh.

From the website:
"4 Directors. 4 Writers. 8 Actors. And 24 Hours to create brand new theatre art. While a play may "normally" take weeks or months of writing and rehearsals, Theatre Sans Serif will be premiering 4 brand new (literally) one act plays. At 7 pm, the writers begin writing, and have 12 hours to complete the script. At 7 am, it's pencils down, as the directors and actors have 12 hours to memorize and rehearse, all in preparation for the 7 o'clock opening of the first show. Three showings only.
Performances at 7, 8:30 and 9:45 pm."

Also this month, we had our monthly reading series at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum, where we were joined by author Alan Simon.

Finally, we completed the first performance of A Christmas Carol, an original reading to benefit the food bank at this time of year.

Ivy Steinberg, Bob Scott, and David Conley

"My Dearest..." Thoughts From the Front, December 2010

David Conley, Bob Scott, Elizabeth Brinkley, and Tara Zynel

A Christmas Carol

Join us for the rest of this year's great programming, and get ready for next year! We'll be bringing you theatre like you've never seen it before!



A Christmas Carol

Poets Corner welcomes Theatre Sans Serif for Charles Dickens’ A CHRISTMAS CAROL

"A READING FOR FEEDING"

Two free readings benefit Northside Common Ministries
and East End Cooperative Ministries Food Pantries
at Calvary United Methodist Church and Pitt’s English Nationality Room

A "reading for feeding" will benefit local food pantries when Poets Corner welcomes Theatre Sans Serif for two presentations of Charles Dickens’ classic A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Admission is free, but in the spirit of season and the current economy, the first event of this returning arts series will give back, asking audience members to bring non-perishable food times to the performance.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL will be read in two locations, decorated for the season. The intimate Victorian Chapel at the historic Calvary Methodist Church will be the setting on Wed., December 15 at 7 pm at 971 Beech Ave. at Allegheny on the Northside. A brief tour of the restored sanctuary and Tiffany windows will be given at 6:30 pm. Refreshments will be served following the reading.

The likewise cozy English Nationality Room, 144 Cathedral of Learning, will host a reading on Sunday, December 19 at 7 pm. For information and questions regarding Poets Corner and how to get involved, e-mail  Poets.Corner.Pittsburgh@gmail.com or call 412-512-0589. A CHRISTMAS CAROL is on FACEBOOK at Poets Corner, Pittsburgh.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Poets-Corner-Pittsburgh/166134940092628 

For information on Theatre Sans Serif, visit http://theatresansserif.blogspot.com/

ABOUT "A CHRISTMAS CAROL," A READING FOR FEEDING

Poets Corner founder Yvonne Hudson says, “A CHRISTMAS CAROL is so in keeping with the spirit of our initial season in 2006-07. In planning new programs, I was looking at 2011, but the enthusiasm of Theatre Sans Serif makes it possible to get an early start, gather much needed food for Pittsburghers in need, and return to our spoken word tradition.”

Pittsburgh’s Theatre Sans Serif is dedicated to producing classical and new works, in innovative and widely ranging styles. The company, producing since October 2009, fosters collaboration between arts organizations to promote the artistic community as a whole. David Conley is directing the reading of A CHRISTMAS CAROL, which features Tara Zynel, Elizabeth Brinkley, Bob Scott, and Conley. Theatre Sans Serif's Artistic Director Andrew Huntley and Hudson are producers for the events.
Dickens' describes the holidays as "a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of other people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys".

A CHRISTMAS CAROL was published in December 1843. The piece, which Dickens later presented in public readings in the version featured by Poets Corner, exemplified what the author called the “Carol Philosophy”. The tale of Scrooge’s miserly ways and redemption was originally told against the Victorian landscape of poverty and the encroaching industrial age. One of the most popular stories for the Christmas season, CAROL continues to remind readers and audiences of the heart of the season.

“Poets Corner enjoys works that provide listeners with food for thought to last beyond our events,” says Hudson, “and CAROL fits that bill. Dickens is actually buried at Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey, so it seems an appropriate honor to kick start our series with his work.”