If it’s the Christmas season, then it must be time for A Christmas Carol.
And so it was Dec. 7 as Sacred Heart Cathedral School’s Theatre Arts Program staged the Charles Dickens classic at the Bearden High School auditorium.
Sacred Heart Cathedral School’s Heart to Heart Players presented the holiday tale of redemption, an adaptation by Frederick Gaines that featured more than 30 talented SHCS students aged 5 to 13.
Favorite holiday miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is visited by four spirits, including his old business partner Jacob Marley and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, highlighted the adaptation of one of the greatest ghost stories of all time. The story, published by Dickens in December 1843, exposes the themes of Advent.
SHCS students performed A Christmas Carol under the direction of Katie Norwood Alley, who is the school’s drama teacher and director of the Theatre Arts Program.
The SHCS Theatre Arts Program is designed to prepare students for the study of acting, dramatic literature, and theatrical production, as well as to develop an appreciation for the many forms of theatre. Students gain skills in communicating ideas, critical thinking and collaborative problem solving through research, planning, scripting, and performance experiences.
Mrs. Alley is an actor, director, and middle school drama teacher. She co-founded the Knoxville theatre company, The Actors Co-op, in 1997, and worked extensively with the company until 2005. She has performed in more than 35 productions in the last 14 years with The Actors Co-op and The Clarence Brown Theatre. Mrs. Alley taught theatre arts at Bearden High School from 2000-2006 and directed eight full-length productions while there.
Mrs. Alley thanked the cast, crew, and parents of Saturday night’s production of and also thanked members of the SHCS community for coming out to see the show. She also expressed gratitude to the Bearden High School Technical Theatre Class.
