OAKLAND COUNTY, Mich. – A holiday favorite is back as “A Christmas Carol” returns to Meadow Brook Theatre on the campus of Oakland University.
Last year the theatre was dark because of the pandemic. This year the first performance is here, but just getting to this point has been a game of chess with COVID-19 running the board. Starting with auditions -- this is a family classic with child actors, but for this production every actor had to be vaccinated, which shallowed the pool of potential children who could even audition.
Approving the shot didn’t come in time to cast younger children. Instead of 20 children in the cast, there are only eight. For the parents, the safety protocols put in place by the theatre are a relief.
Being vaccinated isn’t enough. Cast members have to test themselves three time a week, which can feel like a re-auditioning, except for this one you don’t want a positive response. Every actor understudies one another, in case there is an exterior exposure.
Meanwhile, COVID threatens to Scrooge the production at every turn because one single breakthrough case could take out the entire cast for the run of the show. That’s why they are so darned careful because even in a production of “A Christmas Carol, science is not fiction. But it does change the production.
More: Oakland County news