Knicely Done: A Christmas Carol tradition

The Omaha Community Playhouse presentation of A Christmas Carol continues for the 44th straight year on Friday night.

""We start rehearsals on September 30th so for a couple of months we've been going at it," said co-director Kimberly Faith Hickman in an interview with WOWT 6 News. "It's a really big operation that takes a lot of dedication and love of theater. Including our orchestra, there are about 90 people in the production."

Ablan Roblin handles the other half of the directing duties. "It's the only way it works," he said. "There is too much to do."

Many musicians in the orchestra have performed in the Playhouse rendition almost from the beginning.

"Forty years for me, I started in college," said harpist Kay Keiser. "It was a beautiful show and I cried on the night when I was going home because I thought I'm never going to do anything this beautiful again, If they told me I was going to do it for forty years I might have cried. But I love it."

Oboist Jan Bogardus is back for her forty-first year. "No matter whether it's backstage, or onstage, or the techies, everybody gives 120 per cent," she said. "And it's the most positive place I've ever been."

For Jerry Longe it's his fourteenth year in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge.

"This year I hope to get it right," he joked. "It's my own Scrooge. I would say that everybody that plays this role, and lots of people have, everybody has a different Scrooge."

"A Christmas Carol" will be featured at the Omaha Community Playhouse November 15 through December 23, 2019.

Knicely Done!