{"id":1168,"date":"2018-02-02T15:36:51","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T15:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/?p=1168"},"modified":"2018-02-02T15:38:05","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T15:38:05","slug":"trinity-college-associate-professor-of-theater-and-dance-michael-preston-makes-debut-as-scrooge-in-a-christmas-carol-at-hartford-stage-nov-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/2018\/02\/02\/trinity-college-associate-professor-of-theater-and-dance-michael-preston-makes-debut-as-scrooge-in-a-christmas-carol-at-hartford-stage-nov-24\/","title":{"rendered":"Trinity College Associate Professor of Theater and Dance Michael Preston Makes Debut as Scrooge in \u2018A Christmas Carol\u2019 at Hartford Stage Nov. 24"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Trinity College Associate Professor of Theater and Dance Michael Preston as Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol at Hartford Stage. Photos by Defining Studios.<\/p><\/div>\n

Hartford, Connecticut, November 17, 2017\u2014Trinity College Associate Professor of Theater and Dance\u00a0Michael Preston<\/a>\u2019s favorite thing about playing Ebenezer Scrooge in\u00a0A Christmas Carol<\/em>\u00a0at\u00a0Hartford Stage<\/a>\u00a0is undergoing the miserly character\u2019s transformation. \u201cI love Scrooge because he gets redemption,\u201d Preston said. \u201cIt\u2019s a great journey because I get to make that switch. Scrooge becomes the positive, and that\u2019s the thing that we all crave\u2014for things to change in a positive way. The story never gets old.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s production of the classic Charles Dickens story, which opens on November 24, marks the play\u2019s 20th anniversary at Hartford Stage. Preston is taking over the lead role from Bill Raymond, who had performed as Scrooge since 1998 before retiring last year. \u201cThe main thing I\u2019m taking from Bill is that you have to care about Scrooge; you have to want him to change. Bill did that in a lovely way,\u201d Preston said. \u201cThe audience needs to care enough about Scrooge so that when the change comes, it resonates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preston has been involved with\u00a0A Christmas Carol\u00a0<\/em>at Hartford Stage since 2011, playing the inventor Mr. Marvel. Last season he had the opportunity to serve as an understudy for the role of Scrooge. \u201cI learned the part and had two half-days of rehearsal with the cast. I didn\u2019t know if I would enjoy doing it, and I had a really good time,\u201d Preston said. \u201cI was surprised how mean and vicious I got and how I enjoyed exploring the dark side along with the humor.\u201d He was offered the lead role after Raymond\u2019s retirement was announced.<\/p>\n

Preston said that he finds himself relating to Scrooge\u2019s confrontation with mortality. \u201cThe ghost that really causes him to change is the ghost of the future and seeing his own gravestone, which tells him that it\u2019s time to wake up, that this life isn\u2019t infinite,\u201d Preston said. \u201cI had a heart attack five years ago\u2014it was a minor one and I\u2019m okay, but it certainly raises those questions. When one gets to this age, there\u2019s the fear of the unknown and the fear of ending your life, which is the great common fear that we all have and that we all don\u2019t know what to do with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preston, who teaches acting, stage production, and playwriting at Trinity, has been sharing a teaching position with his wife, Associate Professor of Theater and Dance\u00a0Barbara Karger<\/a>, since 2004. He was first introduced to the theater when his mother got a job as the registrar at the Yale School of Drama. \u201cI was 13 or 14, and when they needed a kid, they called upon me,\u201d Preston said. \u201cI was terrified on opening night of my first show. I didn\u2019t want to go on. But I did it, and I fell in love with the students of the drama school at the time\u2014Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver\u2014and it was the most magical world. I acted in high school, and I tried to give it up in college, but I kept getting drawn back into it.\u201d Preston studied mime, circus, clowning, and comedy while living and working in New York City. From 1991 to 2000, he toured the world as one of the juggling Flying Karamazov Brothers, which included three different runs on Broadway.<\/p>\n

The opportunity to teach at Trinity came from Professor of Theater and Dance Emerita\u00a0Judy Dworin \u201970<\/a>, with whom Preston had worked during his time as a member of the Shaliko Company, founded by Leonardo Shapiro. \u201cShe needed a teacher, so my wife and I came up and did four classes,\u201d Preston said. \u201cWe had said, \u2018Let\u2019s try it for a year.\u2019 That was 13 years ago.\u201d He said that balancing teaching and a career in theater is challenging, but he believes students benefit from having working professionals as instructors. \u201cI think students get our passion about it being an option for their life and that they can do this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>To Preston, learning to create and appreciate art is an integral part of a liberal arts education. \u201cThe arts add an immeasurable amount to the life of a college and to the life of the students,\u201d Preston said. \u201cThe arts are about what make us human and about opening yourself up to your full potential. We want people coming out of a liberal arts college to be the most human they can be. We\u2019re lucky to have a place like Hartford Stage\u2014one of the best regional theaters in the country\u2014right here. They\u2019re doing incredible work all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rachel Alderman, the director of\u00a0A Christmas Carol<\/em>, said that Hartford Stage is thrilled to welcome Preston to his new role. \u201cThe fact that Michael has been involved for the past six years and that he\u2019s going to take the lead in the show this year is just another wonderful way that Hartford Stage and Trinity are able to help knit the city together and also highlight the city\u2019s cultural capital,\u201d Alderman said.<\/p>\n

Trinity students have the opportunity to learn more about the behind-the-scenes operations of Hartford Stage by applying for Trinity\u2019s \u201cHartford Stage 360\u201d internship, in which interns rotate through all departments of the nonprofit theater company. Visit the\u00a0Center for Student Success and Career Development<\/a>\u00a0for more information about that internship. Hartford Stage also offers many paid apprenticeships and unpaid internships to early-career theater professionals and college students.\u00a0Jennifer L. Roberts<\/a>, visiting assistant professor of theater and dance at Trinity, is the director of education at Hartford Stage. Click\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0for more information about Hartford Stage apprenticeships and internships.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

A Christmas Carol<\/em>\u00a0at Hartford Stage opens November 24 and runs through December 30. For more information, visit\u00a0www.hartfordstage.org<\/a>.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Written by\u00a0Andrew J. Concatelli<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hartford, Connecticut, November 17, 2017\u2014Trinity College Associate Professor of Theater and Dance\u00a0Michael Preston\u2019s favorite thing about playing Ebenezer Scrooge in\u00a0A Christmas Carol\u00a0at\u00a0Hartford Stage\u00a0is undergoing the miserly character\u2019s transformation. \u201cI love Scrooge because he gets redemption,\u201d Preston said. \u201cIt\u2019s a great journey because I get to make that switch. Scrooge becomes the positive, and that\u2019s the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1424,"featured_media":1169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[333,332,47],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1168"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1424"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1168"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1171,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1168\/revisions\/1171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}