By Paul Leighton
BEVERLY — A show that became a holiday tradition for thousands of local residents over two decades will return to the stage this week, not in Beverly but across the border in Portsmouth, N.H.
"A Christmas Carol" will open Friday night at the Seacoast Repertory Theatre, after preview shows tonight and tomorrow. The production is the same musical version that appeared at the now-shuttered North Shore Music Theatre for 19 years and stars David Coffee as Scrooge, the role he played for 16 of those years at North Shore.
"I am delighted that the show will be back up on the boards for this year," said Jon Kimbell, the former North Shore Music Theatre artistic director who co-wrote the musical adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" and directed the show for years. "That means it'll only have been dark for a year, and I really missed it last year."
Seacoast Repertory officials say they have sold about 75 percent of the tickets for the show, which runs through Dec. 27. The theater has 234 seats, much smaller than the 1,500-seat North Shore Music Theatre. Seacoast, which opened in 1987, also has a three-quarter thrust stage, as opposed to North Shore's theater-in-the-round.
Seacoast artistic director Craig Faulkner, who is directing the show, said the theater underwent a major renovation to accommodate the production, including raising the stage 3 feet to allow for special effects to come up through the floor.
"This is a huge show for us," Faulkner said.
Adapted from the classic Charles Dickens story by Kimbell, David James and David Zoffoli, "A Christmas Carol" premiered at North Shore Music Theatre in 1989 and quickly became the theater's most popular annual production.
The show ran for 19 straight years until theater officials made the controversial decision to replace it with "High School Musical 2" in 2008. The theater, which opened in 1955, went out of business earlier this year under $10 million in debt.
Businessman William Hanney, who owns Theatre by the Sea in Rhode Island, has signed a purchase agreement to buy the Beverly theater and hopes to reopen in the spring. Hanney has said he would like to bring back "A Christmas Carol."
Seacoast Rep officials say they don't know how many former North Shore Music Theatre subscribers plan to attend the show 40 miles away in Portsmouth. NSMT subscribers were offered free tickets to Seacoast's summer shows, and some became subscribers, said Stacy Chilicki, the theater's director of marketing and publicity.
Five Massachusetts schools, including Higgins Middle School in Peabody, are planning student trips to see "A Christmas Carol," according to the theater.
But some former North Shore Music Theatre subscribers said they won't travel to Portsmouth. Laura Witwicki of Beverly said "A Christmas Carol" is what drew her to NSMT in the first place, but she will not be attending the show at Seacoast.
"If I hadn't seen it, I think I'd be tempted, but I've seen it a million times," Witwicki said. "I'm just happy that somebody else has bought the theater."
Longtime subscribers Henry and Silvia Migneault of Beverly described NSMT's production of "A Christmas Carol" as "brilliant," but they also said they won't be going to Portsmouth.
"We're in our 70s, and we don't like to drive at night," Henry Migneault said. "We were kind of spoiled to have it in our backyard here."
Faulkner, the Seacoast artistic director, said the Portsmouth version will lack some of the special effects and pyrotechnics that marked "A Christmas Carol" in recent years at NSMT. Seacoast, for example, doesn't have elevators to lift the actors through the stage floor.
"North Shore did a lot of things technically because they could," Faulkner said. "We still have a great deal of bells-and-whistle special effects, but it's a little closer to what the show was 10 years ago as opposed to what it evolved into over 20 years."
Kimbell, who once ran Seacoast Repertory Theatre and lives in New Hampshire, has been advising Faulkner on the production.
"I'm hoping the production is successful," he said. "I think it might be. I know they're working very hard on it."
Staff writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2675 or by e-mail at pleighton@salemnews.com.
