Video above by DCPA Video Producer David Lenk. Interviews by Senior Arts Journalist John Moore.

The DCPA’s creative team tells us why they made the mysterious final spirit to visit Scrooge nearly 3 feet taller

By John Moore
Senior Arts Journalist

If you are a regular attendee of the DCPA Theatre Company’s seasonal staging of A Christmas Carol, you may have noticed how much bigger and more imposing The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come was from years, well … past.

“We wanted it to be a very big presence, much bigger than it has been in the past,” said Costume Crafts Director Kevin Copenhaver.

“It’s just creepier,” added Director Melissa Rain Anderson.  

In this video, Copenhaver tells us the mysterious and reticent final spirit to visit Ebenezer Scrooge was not only 2 ½ feet taller and wider this year — he was easier for the actor inside to move around in.

“He’s now 10½ feet tall,” Anderson said, “and the actor was walking around on his feet rather than on stilts.”

The way Copenhaver sees it, the silent future spirit is neither human skeleton nor exactly a ghost. “Hopefully it doesn’t read as much of anything except a shape or a form,” he said. Perhaps the most remarkable advancement with this new iteration of Copenhaver’s costume invention, he added, “is that it is so light, “I can lift it up with one hand.”

Still, it took a backstage team of four to help first-time DCPA actor Darrell T. Joe, who played several characters in the story, to get in and out of the costume quickly. Joe, who is admittedly a claustrophobic person, said moving around onstage was a challenge because of low light and being covered in costume. But “it’s helped me overcome my fear of tight spaces,” he said.

You also may have noticed, Anderson shared — that for a play filled with live music, none playing the entire time The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come was onstage. “There can be no singing during that part of the story,” Anderson said, “because music is dead.”

More Colorado theatre coverage on the DCPA NewsCenter

Take a look at the difference in between The Ghost of Christmas Past in 2016 compared to 2017. The actor paying Scrooge in both cases is Sam Gregory. Photos by Sam Adams of Adams Viscom.  

Previous NewsCenter coverage of A Christmas Carol 2017:
DCPA’s A Christmas Carol still brings playwright to laughter, tears
Photos, video: Your first look at A Christmas Carol 2017
Video: Governor, Carol cast send Colorado National Guard thanks and hope
A Christmas Carol: A timeline to today
DCPA’s 25th A Christmas Carol brims with mistletoe and milestones

Full photo gallery: The Making of A Christmas Carol 

Photos from the making of ‘A Christmas Carol’ from first rehearsal to opening night. To see more, click on the image above to be taken to our full gallery of photos. Photos by John Moore for the DCPA NewsCenter.