"Miracle on 34th Street" - Valentine Davies - Theatre Of Northeastern Connecticut, Inc. at the Bradley Playhouse (Putnam, CT) - REVIEW
(Cover Photo: Amy Stoelzel as “Doctor Pierce” with Preston Arnold as “Kris Kringle” in "MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET" at the Bradley Playhouse in Putnam, CT. through December 22, 2024. Photo Courtesy Bradley Playhouse)
By Kevin T. Baldwin
METRMAG Reviewer
# 774-242-6724
“Look Doris, someday you're going to find that your way of facing this realistic world just doesn't work. And when you do, don't overlook those lovely intangibles. You'll discover they're the only things that are worthwhile.”
- ("Fred Gayley") / Valentine Davies
Theatre Of Northeastern Connecticut, Inc.
at the Bradley Playhouse
Presents the Holiday Classic
"MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET"
From the novel by Valentine Davies
Based upon the 20th Century Fox motion picture “Miracle on 34th Street"
Directed by Madeline Jaaskela and Jeremy Woloski
Stage Manager - Marissa Phaneuf Hubbard
Cast Includes: Amy Stoelzel as “Doctor Pierce,” Preston Arnold as “Kris Kringle,” Wladimir Petruniw as “Shellhammer,” Laurie Neal as “Doris Walker,” Adelaide Bean as “Susan Walker” (12/13. 12/14, 12/15, 12/21 & 12/22), Eva Ferreira as “Susan Walker” (12/5, 12/6, 12/7, 12/8, 12/20), Nick Hemeon as “Fred Gayley,” Renan Fontes as “Drunken Santa/Halloran,” Roy Simmons as “Macy,” Caleb Hanley as “Sawyer,” Russell S. Fish as “Bloomingdale/Judge Harper,” David Lindsay as “Mara,” Gary Osbrey as “Radio Announcer,” Christine Crugnola Petruniw as “Finley/Rich Lady/Dutch Girl’s Mom,” Cheyenne Reynolds as “Sharon’s Mom/Photographer,” Cami Huizenga as “Jane Duncan/Johnny’s Mom,” Melinda Collelo as “Megan’s Mom/Bag Lady,” Bonnie Theriault as “Bag Lady/Photographer,” Meeah Hart as “Megan,” Oakley Renaud as “Sharon,” Jeffrey McAteer as “Johnny,” Charlotte Totten as “Kristina the Dutch Girl”
Santa's Elves: David Abbamonte, Casey Stoelzel, Delaney O’Grady, Adelaide Beams (12/5, 12/6, 12/7, 12/8, 12/20) Eva Ferreira (12/13, 12/14, 12/15, 12/21, 12/22)
Postal Clerks: Melinda Collelo & Bonnie Theriault (12/6), Tonya Brock & Barney Seney (12/7), Kristi-Lyn Sadosky & Jim Faucher (12/8), Ella Woloski & Jim Faucher (12/13), Cindy Beckman & Barbara Rasmussen (12/14), Ellie & Laurie Bartholic (12/15), Kathe Atwood & Carl Mercier (12/20), Alan & Sophie Marcus (12/21), Anna Kate Werge & Paisley Gothreau (12/22).
Additional Creative Team:
Artistic Committee Liaison – Kathleen Atwood; Production Manager – Jeanne Foley; Production Coordinator – Kathleen Atwood; Set Design – Jeremy Woloski; Set Artists – Diana Lee, Maria Bessette, Amanda Bessette, Sandy Lazarou, Jasmine Gervais; Costumers – Paisley Gothreau, Anna Kate Werge; Hair and Makeup – Rebecca Theriaque; Props – Bonnie Theriault, Melinda Collelo, Wladimir Petruniw, Christine Crugnola Petruniw; Lighting and Sound Design – Jeremy Woloski; Light and Sound Operators – Jeremy Woloski, Ella Woloski, Connor Small; Stage Hands – Danny Hart, Jaime Hart, David Abbamonte, Casey Stoelzel; Set Construction – Ty Collige; Photography – Alan Marcus; Volunteer Coordinator – Cindy Beckman; Business Manager – Kristi-Lyn Sadosky.
Performances:
December 6, 2024 through December 22, 2024
(Contact Box Office for Exact Times)
THE BRADLEY PLAYHOUSE, 30 Front Street (Route 44) in Putnam, CT.
TICKETS
All seats reserved. Reservations may be made with a major credit card online at www.thebradleyplayhouse.org or by calling 860-928-7887.
BUY TICKETS
COVID 19 PROTOCOLS
Contact Venue for Most Updated COVID-19 Safety Protocols and Information.
The Theatre of Northeastern Connecticut at the Bradley Playhouse (TNECT) celebrates the Christmas season with the charming and heartwarming "MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET."
The TNECT production, co-directed by Madeline Jaaskela and Jeremy Woloski, has a sweetness and optimism that makes the whole show engaging and enjoyable for the whole family.
Based on the classic motion picture from Twentieth Century Fox starring Maureen O’Hara, Edmund Gwenn as Santa and a young Natalie Wood, "MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET" takes place in New York City.
Kris Kringle (Preston Arnold) is a kind, robust elder gentleman who has been released from a retirement home and needs to find work.
Arnold commands the stage and is a pure holiday delight from the moment he enters as Kringle.
Through a bizarrely convenient accident, Kringle finds employment working as Santa for Macy’s.
Kringle works for Doris Walker (Laurie Neal) who handles all the department store “Santas” for Macy’s under Mr. Macy (Roy Simmons).
Neal is convincing as the hard-working Doris who has become embittered by life after a divorce that leaves her alone to raise her young daughter, Susan (played at alternating performances by Adelaide Beams and Eva Ferreira).
Susan also has some difficulty using her imagination to believe in such things as “Santa,” but Kringle soon breaks through Susan’s doubtful veneer and she begins to believe in things she never thought possible, as do most of whom engage with the extremely charismatic Kringle.
In fact, belief itself becomes a common theme throughout the production - not just in Santa Claus but belief in our own humanity and how that influences how we choose to treat one another.
(Photo: Laurie Neal as "Doris," Eva Ferreira as "Susan" and Nick Hemeon as "Fred" in "MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET" at the Bradley Playhouse in Putnam, CT. through December 22, 2024. Photo Courtesy Bradley Playhouse)
The TNECT adaptation succeeds in showing us a world where people have become jaded and have lost the ability to have faith in things that may not be easily proven.
Therefore, this world is desperately in need of a true "MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET" in order to change all that.
Doris has a wacky assistant named Shellhammer (Wladimir Petruniw) who is comically awkward in many scenes in the show.
Kringle is aided by several “Santa’s Elves”: David Abbamonte, Casey Stoelzel, Delaney O’Grady and (at alternating performances) Adelaide Beams and Eva Ferreira.
These Elves make the most of every scene in which they appear - especially as they perform a bizarre and accelerated rendition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
Kringle lifts the spirits of nearly everyone he encounters…with a couple of exceptions.
(Photo: Adelaide Beams, Casey Stoelzel and Delaney O’Grady as "Santa's Elves" with Renan Fontes as the "Drunken Santa" in "MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET" at the Bradley Playhouse in Putnam, CT. through December 22, 2024. Photo Courtesy Bradley Playhouse)
Unexpectedly for Doris, Kringle begins to advise Macy’s customers, coming with their children to meet “Santa,” to go to other stores to find exactly what they need if Macy’s does not carry it.
As a result of this act of generosity, the show’s only true irredeemable villain of the story, Sawyer (Caleb Hanley), Macy’s vocational counselor, maneuvers to have Kringle committed to Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital even though Kringle’s actions results in many competing businesses to recommend one another’s goods in an outlandish act of “good will.”
Hanley’s “Sawyer” plays a little over the top, but that may be more by the script’s design than Hanley’s performance.
In any event, through Sawyer’s actions, Kringle must now stand trial to either be incarcerated as insane or celebrated as the one and only true Santa Claus.
During Act Two, the show moves to a courtroom where Kringle faces a competency hearing presided over by Judge Harper (Russell S. Fish) who faces pressure to either commit Kringle as a lunatic or conclude, legally, that Kringle is, in fact, the real “Santa Claus.”
Fish impresses both as the Judge and earlier as Macy’s competitor, “Mr. Bloomingdale.” Fish dominates much of the second act along with Nick Hameon as Kringle’s lawyer and friend, Fred Gayley, who is in love with Doris.
Gayley is very much in his element as the Stalwart champion for the freedom of Kris and for the hearts of Doris and Susan.
The actors are guided well thanks to the collective direction by Jaaskela and Woloski.
Costuming TNECT for the production seem impeccably in place for the story’s time period and backdrops used in the production are absolutely gorgeous. Lighting and sound cues are also flawlessly executed.
(Photo: Caleb Hanley as "Sawyer" with Wladimir Petruniw as "Shellhammer" in "MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET" at the Bradley Playhouse in Putnam, CT. through December 22, 2024. Photo Courtesy Bradley Playhouse)
The rather complex courtroom set by the TNECT creative team was impressive, although a bit oversized.
There was also a second witness chair to the stage left side of the judge’s bench which never got used and which seemed to merely make any required stage movement more cumbersome.
Structured by the script, the second act moves in and out of the courtroom, which requires a redress of the set each time, yet these “non-courtroom scenes” were mostly just for brief dialogue exchanges.
What might have proven more effective is having these “non-courtroom scenes” merely move in front of the set and isolated for the dialogue exchanges and therefore not requiring any actual redress of the set.
That aside, any set changes required throughout the show were handled quite well by the stage crew and cast.
During this post-election holiday season where at least half the population is walking around in a bit of a funk, we absolutely need a little Christmas joy and fun more than ever - and TNECT certainly brings both in "MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET."
(Photo: Amy Stoelzel as “Doctor Pierce” with Preston Arnold as “Kris Kringle” in "MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET" at the Bradley Playhouse in Putnam, CT. through December 22, 2024. Photo Courtesy Bradley Playhouse)
"MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET" continues at the Bradley Playhouse in Putnam, CT. until December 22nd and is a joyous holiday present intended for all to enjoy.
Coming up in 2025 from TNECT, the Bradley Playhouse has unveiled an exciting new season that will include:
- "THE CURIOUS SAVAGE" by John Patrick, which will run from January 24th through February 2nd, 2025.
- “THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK" will be performed April 25th through May 11th, 2025.
- William Shakespeare’s "A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM" will take place from June 6th through June 15th, 2025.
- The smash musical "THE PROM" by Chad Beguelin, Bob Martin and Matthew Sklar, running from July 25th through August 9th, 2025.
- Agatha Christie’s "MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS" adapted by Ken Ludwig, performed October 3rd through October 19th, 2025.
- The 2025 season will conclude with an inspired musical take on Dickens’ “Christmas Carol” with "EBENEZER" written by Ian Desmond O'Connell, William Mearns and Rosemary Novellino-Mearns, beginning December 5th and running through December 21st, 2025.
For tickets and more information, visit www.thebradleyplayhouse.org or call # 860-928-7887.
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Approximately two hours with one intermission.
Kevin T. Baldwin is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA)
@MetrmagReviews
@Theatre_Critics
ABOUT THE SHOW
Most of us are quite familiar with the nostalgic and beloved 1947 Christmas movie, "MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET."
But did you know that the inspiration for the story, about a disillusioned woman, her skeptical daughter and a mysterious man who believes he is the real Santa Claus, came when Valentine Davies was standing in line at a big department store during the Christmas season?
Davies took his story idea to writer and director George Seaton, who turned it into a screenplay "MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET" which earned Davies an Academy Award for Best Story.
After having written the story for the film, Valentine Davies did a novelization of it, which was published as a 120-page novella by Harcourt Brace & Company in conjunction with the film release.
In 1982, the Mountain Community Theater in Ben Lomond, California adapted a play from the novella by Valentine Davies.
The story in this play is completely faithful to Davies’ book and continues to still hold all its enchanting Christmas magic and allure.
The story takes place between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day in New York City, and focuses on the effect of a department store Santa Claus who claims to be the real Santa.
In this heartwarming holiday story we find, by chance, Kris Kringle, an elderly gentleman, acquiring a job working as Santa for Macy’s Department store.
This is a tale that we all want to believe in, that creates a world we seem to desperately desire, free of blatant commercialism that surrounds us, where love and decency and generosity of spirit are their own rewards.
ABOUT THE BRADLEY PLAYHOUSE
THE BRADLEY PLAYHOUSE is a 117 year-old vaudeville theatre in the heart of the Putnam antiques and restaurant district in the “Quiet Corner” of Northeastern Connecticut. Since 1991, THE BRADLEY PLAYHOUSE has been managed by the volunteers of The Theatre of Northeastern Connecticut, Inc. (TNECT).
ABOUT THEATRE OF NORTHEASTERN CONNECTICUT (TNECT)
TNECT produces eight main season shows per year and a number of special fundraising events for The Bradley Playhouse Restoration Fund. TNECT’s mission is to produce and sponsor quality theatre and entertainment for the residents of Northeastern Connecticut and the surrounding areas, to encourage the development of creativity through the support of local artists, and to support education and hands-on experience in the creation, direction, and production of theatre and the performing arts.
30 Front Street
P.O. Box # 71
Putnam, CT. 06260-1942
