Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”

Will Lyman – Commonwealth Shakespeare Company: King Lear, Claudius, Prospero, Brutus. Off Broadway: Man in Snow, The Passion of Dracula, The Novelist, The Grinding Machine. The Huntington: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, All My Sons, Dead End. New Repertory Theatre: Long Day’s Journey into Night, Dollhouse, The Clean House, The Ice-Breaker. The Nora@Central Square Theater: Operation Epsilon, Equus. Boston Playwrights’ Theatre: Windowmen, The Oil Thief, King of the Jews. Gamm Theatre: Celebration. Film: “Little Children,” “Mystic River,” “The Siege,” “A Perfect Murder,” “Welcome to the Dollhouse,” “The Arborist,” and “Mother/Android.” TV: “Commander-in-Chief,” “Threat Matrix,” “Hull High,” “Crossbow,” and long-time narrator of public affairs program “Frontline” (PBS). Awards: multiple Elliot Norton and IRNE awards, Howard Keel Award for service to the Screen Actors Guild.

Steven Maler is the Founding Artistic Director of Commonwealth Shakespeare Company (CSC). At CSC he has been directing Free Shakespeare on the Boston Common productions since 1996, including Richard III, Love’s Labour’s Lost, King Lear, Twelfth Night, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Coriolanus, All’s Well That Ends Well, Othello, The Comedy Of Errors, As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, Henry V, The Tempest, Julius Caesar, and Romeo & Juliet. Other CSC works include his critically acclaimed production of Naomi Wallace’s adaptation of William Wharton’s novel Birdy, Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden, the world premiere of Jake Broder’s Our American Hamlet, and the world premiere of Robert Brustein’s The Last Will.  In collaboration with Boston Landmarks Orchestra, he directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream, featuring the Overture and Incidental Music of Felix Mendelssohn, as well as concert stagings of The Boys from Syracuse and Kiss Me Kate at Boston’s iconic Hatch Shell.  For CSC he has also directed one-night-only readings of iconic plays featuring Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Paul Rudd, Anthony Mackie, Blair Brown, Tony Shalhoub, Brooke Adams, Leslie Uggams, David Morse, and Jeffrey Donovan among others.  He conceived and directed Shakespeare at Fenway, an evening of Shakespeare scenes performed at Boston’s iconic Fenway Park, featuring Mike O’Malley, Neal McDonough, Maryann Plunkett, Jay O. Sanders, Kerry O’Malley, Seth Gilliam, Zuzanna Szadkowski, Max Von Essen, Christian Coulson, Jason Butler Harner, and many others.

In collaboration with Google, he adapted and directed a first of its kind sixty minute virtual reality film of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, entitled Hamlet 360: Thy Father’s Spirit, starring Jack Cutmore-Scott, Jay O. Sanders, Brooke Adams, and Faran Tahir.  It is currently available for viewing on Boston public media producer GBH’s YouTube channel; for more information, visit www.wgbh.org/hamlet360.

Outside of CSC, he directed Maria, Regina D’Inghilterra for Odyssey Opera, Péter Eötvös’ operatic treatment of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (U.S. Premiere) and Thomas Adès’ Powder Her Face for Opera Boston, The Turn of the Screw at New Repertory Theatre, Santaland Diaries and Chay Yew’s Porcelain at SpeakEasy Stage Company, Top Girls and Weldon Rising at Coyote Theatre, and The L.A. Plays by Han Ong at A.R.T. His New York City credits include the New York Musical Theatre Festival production of Without You, written by and starring Anthony Rapp. The production has been seen in Boston, Edinburgh, Toronto, London, and Seoul.

He received the prestigious Elliot Norton Award for Sustained Excellence, as well as for Best Production for Twelfth Night and All’s Well That Ends Well; Outstanding Director, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Best Production, SubUrbia; Best Solo Performance, John Kuntz’s Starf***ers (which also won Best Solo Performance Award at New York International Fringe Festival). His feature film “The Autumn Heart,” starring Tyne Daly and Ally Sheedy was in the Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival.

Dan Rodriguez (Music Director) – Commonwealth Shakespeare Company: Debut. Lyric Stage: Preludes, The Last Five Years, Little Shop of Horrors, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Gypsy. The Huntington: Sunday in the Park with George, A Little Night Music. North Shore Music Theater: Kinky Boots, Little Shop of Horrors. Reagle Music Theater: Oklahoma!, West Side Story. Moonbox Productions: Caroline or Change, Cabaret. Wheelock Family Theatre: In the Heights. American Repertory Theatre: The Lily’s Revenge, The Blue Flower. Front Porch Arts Collective: Ain’t Misbehavin’. A graduate of Oberlin, Dan now works at the Boston Conservatory and has also worked at Emerson, Brandeis, and Northeastern. Winner of the Elliot Norton award and multiple IRNE awards for Best Music Direction. Member of the American Federation of Musicians Local 9-535.

Steve Wargo (Adaptation) is a director, playwright, and producer and, most recently, Chief Creative Officer of the Denver Immersive Repertory Theater. Prior to moving to the mountains, Steve moved mountains in NYC for over two decades as the Founding Artistic Director of both Personal Space Theatrics and The Queensborough Theatre Project, as well as the Creative Director of Resounding, an immersive audio entertainment company, where they produced multiple live immersive audio plays during the pandemic lockdown, including the first play to open in New York before a live paying audience after the industry shutdown, the unauthorized parody in verse Clu-eth. Favorite credits include (as director): Brigadoon (Colorado Candlelight); the immersive concert experience Kabarett Weimar; seven NYC productions of this adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”; David Ives’ Don Juan in Chicago (first NYC revival); The Duchess, aka Wallis Simpson and Orchidelirium (both U.S. premieres). As writer: Triassic Parq: The Musical (with Marshall Pailet and Bryce Norbitz; multi-award-winning show; published and licensed by Broadway Licensing); Scooby-Doosical with Keith Varney. As producer: the late, great Arthur Kopit’s revised BecauseHeCan (first NYC revival). A Pittsburgh native, Steve earned his BFA in Musical Theater from Syracuse University, and is a proud Member of the Dramatists Guild. Instagram: @thestevewargo

Dianne Adams McDowell (Musical Arranger/Composer)
Dianne Adams McDowell, a native of West Virginia, has served as Vocal
Arranger for Broadway’s A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder, the
recipient of seven Drama Desk Awards, four Tony Awards (including Best
Musical), and a 2015 Grammy Nomination. She was commissioned to
compose for Radio City Music Hall’s Magnificent Christmas

Spectacular and, with longtime husband/collaborator, James McDowell, co-
wrote the music & lyrics for The Wind in the Willows at the New Victory

Theatre, Times Square, Bookends at the New Jersey Repertory Company,
and their original Gospel Mass of St. Thomas’, performed at The Church of
Saint Paul & the Redeemer in Hyde Park, Chicago. Other credits include

Vocal Arranger/Associate Conductor for Broadway’s Tony-
nominated Starmites, Arranger/Consultant for Disney Productions, as well

as Universal Theatrical Division’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Musical!
(by the late, great Steven Lutvak). Dianne created the score for Tazewell
Thompson’s highly acclaimed JUBILEE at Arena Stage, Washington, DC,
and Seattle Opera. For another Thompson collaboration, Constant
Star, she is the recipient of the Philadelphia Barrymore Award, the Beverly
Hills/Hollywood NAACP Award, and a Helen Hayes Award nomination. Her
vocal arrangements have been performed on stages throughout the
country, including Lincoln Center, Hartford Stage, Actors’ Theatre of
Louisville, Syracuse Stage, Avery Fisher Hall, The Old Globe Theatre (in
San Diego), and abroad in Tokyo, Shanghai, Seoul, Melbourne, and
Stockholm.