The Contemporary American Theatre Company will kick off the holiday season with a production that combines two of Truman Capote’s autobiographical holiday stories, starting this weekend at Studio One Theatre at the Vern Riffe Center downtown.
“The Thanksgiving Visitor” and “A Christmas Memory” were two of Capote’s favorite stories, according to a press release, and tell of his life as a 7-year-old boy in 1932 during the Great Depression.
The cast includes Ian Short playing Buddy, Capote as a child; Linda Dorff playing Miss Sook, Buddy’s distant cousin and elderly best friend; and Curtis Brown playing Odd Henderson, Buddy’s 12-year-old enemy.
Short, who has been an actor in New York for eight years and has directed a variety of musicals, said he enjoys playing Buddy because of his young heart and spirit.
“I like the fact that he finds joy in the smallest things,” Short said. “He makes a lot of discoveries in the play. He discovers things about himself, about Miss Sook, about the world around him. That’s always fun for an actor to make discoveries on stage.”
Photo courtesy of Melissa Bleen“She was very wise, even though she was childlike,” Dorff said. “She spent a lot of time noticing things and figuring things out. She was a very good person for [Capote] to have as a little boy.”
Brown, who is an Ohio State alumnus and acted in four shows in college, likes the transition his character Odd Henderson goes through during the play.
“He’s pretty rotten but there’s a sense of honor in there with him,” Brown said. “He’s just mainly a bully and eventually he grows up and turns into a respectable guy.”
The first act of the play will be “The Thanksgiving Visitor” followed by “A Christmas Memory” as the second act. The play is performed in a storytelling format and, despite being two separate one-acts with different themes, the acts include the same characters in the same time frame, Short said.
“The Thanksgiving Visitor” involves Odd Henderson coming to Thanksgiving dinner despite being Buddy’s arch-enemy.
“I think the moral of it is that people are not always what they seem. Everyone has a story,” Short said.
Short said he thinks “A Christmas Memory” is a heart-warming story about the joy of Christmas.
“‘A Christmas Memory’ evokes, to me, the true spirit of Christmas,” Short said. “The joy they have in baking fruit cakes and cutting down a Christmas tree and making each other’s Christmas presents, it’s not commercial or material.”
Brown said he hopes the acts will motivate audiences to remember the true meaning of the holiday season.
“The whole reason that we have these holidays is getting together and having experiences and memories that we can reflect on once when we’re older,” Brown said. “Sometimes with holidays … we kind of forget.”
Dorff also said she thinks the play will put the spotlight on family and loved ones.
“It’s a wonderful family kind of humor,” Dorff said. “It’s very fresh and honest. It’s such a happy story, and so heartwarming.”
Dorff, who has performed a reading of “A Christmas Memory” in the past for her church, thinks that even the toughest of audiences will be emotionally captivated by the story and the message, she said.
“I think at least by the end of ‘A Christmas Memory’ there won’t be a dry eye in the house,” Dorff said. “I can’t imagine even Scrooge sitting through this and not smiling and then having at least a couple of tears near the end, because it’s just so sweet.”
“The Thanksgiving Visitor” and “A Christmas Memory” will start Friday, Nov. 28 at 8 p.m. and run through Dec. 21 at the Vern Riffe Center, 77 S. High St. Tickets are $40 for main level seating and $25 for balcony seating. Students can purchase tickets for half-price on Thursday and Sunday performances with valid identification.
Kristen Duwe can be reached at [email protected].
