The Santaland Diaries/Season’s Greetings

Presented by Tennessee Repertory Theatre

Through Dec. 22 at theBelcourt Theatre

One-man shows are popular this time of year. They’re inexpensive to do, of course. Companies save a bundle on actors’ salaries; settings are modest; and sometimes the royalties are nil, as in the case of Mark Cabus’ one-man performance of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, presently running at the Darkhorse Theater.

Tennessee Repertory Theatre is currently offering a double bill of one-person shows, both of them based on short stories by humorist David Sedaris. After an enthusiastic reception last year in its Nashville debut, Sedaris’ comically cynical holiday piece “The Santaland Diaries” is once again on the boards, this time in tandem with his “Season’s Greetings.” For a nice change of pace, the Rep is performing at the easily accessible Belcourt Theatre. (The switch in venue is due to prior TPAC obligations, which made it impossible for the Rep to house the production in Johnson Theater, yet it all works well enough in this new setting.)

Brenda Sparks directs both of the one-acts efficiently, and the Rep’s design team, headed up by Gary C. Hoff, has made an effectively festive transition to the venerable Hillsboro Village space. Brandon Boyd stars as Sedaris’ alter ego in the main piece, about a poor unemployed sap who caves in to the necessity for holding a job—in this case, becoming a holiday-time elf at Macy’s department store in New York City. Boyd is energetic and appealing, relates closely to the audience, and otherwise summons the necessary irony to evoke giggles and knowing smiles with the material.

The evening’s opener, “Season’s Greetings,” features Julie Rowe as a somewhat beleaguered and undeniably daffy homemaker who explains the contents of the family’s annual Christmas letter—including the revelation that her husband’s long-lost daughter from his tour of duty in Vietnam has come into their lives with decidedly stressful results. Rowe is quite likable in the role, strolling about her kitchen, readying things for the holidays, and doing her best to be engagingly nonplussed about what has obviously been a difficult time. In general, she is a pleasure to watch. She also assumes a rather unusual accent—Irish, maybe?—which is an apparent attempt to add comic gloss to her character. It works in a way, but arguably is unnecessary, if only because we are not privy to any justification for it.

This is a different kind of evening of holiday fun, but parents should be aware that there’s some adult language in the program.

New Year’s dissolution

Sometimes there’s more happening offstage than on in the Nashville theater world. As reported in the Dec. 14 Tennessean, beginning with the new year, Tennessee Repertory Theatre will be merging organizationally with the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. While the Rep will retain its nonprofit status as a producing theater company, its business management, information services, human resources, marketing, box office and other areas of operation will be subsumed under TPAC’s jurisdiction, according to the terms of an Interim Service Agreement effective Jan. 1, 2002. A full Consolidation and Joint Operations Agreement is due to take effect no later than June 30, 2002.

David Grapes will continue as the producing director of the Rep, and will continue to plan and oversee the Rep’s stage productions. Yet while most of the Rep’s internal positions will find new status within the TPAC structure, it remains to be seen if all current Rep managers will have jobs within the new entity. Jayne Rogovin, director of marketing and public relations, says she isn’t quite sure about her future at this point; the status of associate artistic director Todd Olson is also unclear.

In a joint statement issued by the two companies, current Rep board president Kerry Graham said, “Both organizations view this collaboration as a way to develop and present a better artistic product, more efficiently for the enjoyment of more people. New possibilities will emerge as we continue to work out details of the consolidation and make plans for the Rep’s 2002-2003 season. Even in the best of economic times, producing and presenting live theater is an ambitious undertaking with high risks. On top of the traditional challenges for market share that we face in the arts and entertainment industry, the local and national economy continues to slow. In response, the leadership of Tennessee Repertory Theatre and TPAC were eager to think creatively and to explore innovations that could benefit both institutions. We believe this consolidation is the best way to strengthen Tennessee Repertory Theatre...[which] has much to give to TPAC.”

Denny Bottorff, chairman of the board of directors of Tennessee Performing Arts Center Management Corporation, stated: “For TPAC, the benefit of the consolidation begins with the rich knowledge of theater possessed by David Grapes and the TRT staff and board. We value their technical expertise and artistic counsel. Other benefits include a producing arm for TPAC which is already staffed by an excellent production and creative team, the potential for new sources of income, and creative collaborations in theater, education and audience development that we only have begun to identify. We’ve concentrated primarily on the practical, financial details of a consolidation. We’ve reached a business agreement. We’re eager to explore the creative possibilities.”

Board shake-ups are also forthcoming in the new arrangement.

To many, this consolidation is unsurprising, especially since the Rep has in recent years been trying to whittle down its sizable deficit, which currently hovers at approximately $400,000 (despite a recent upswing in subscriptions). Yet, strangely enough, Grapes told the Scene this past summer that the Rep’s identity problems are due in part to its longtime affiliation with TPAC, where it has been presenting its productions—and paying rent—since its inception in 1985.

Perhaps even more ironic is the fact that, so far this season, the Rep has produced uniformly good work, with all of its 2001-2002 productions so far—West Side Story, The Miracle Worker, Dinner With Friends and The Santaland Diaries/Season’s Greetings—garnering solid reviews and exhibiting increased artistic consistency.

Of course, they don’t call it show business for nothing. In this case, the little fish was swallowed by the big one. Nothing new about that. Still, the Rep’s clear-cut loss of autonomy deserves further, and closer, examination.

For rent

Nashvillians looking for a post-Christmas evening of theater can’t do better than to hie on down to TPAC’s Jackson Hall, Dec. 27-30, when the multiple award-winning musical Rent will settle in for five performances. Probably not since A Chorus Line grabbed the public’s imagination in the mid-1970s has a contemporary musical evoked such general enthusiasm. There’s good reason too. Rent won both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Musical—only the fifth show ever to do so. Charting the lives of Lower East Side Manhattan artists who battle poverty, homelessness and AIDS, Rent features a pop-rock score (including the unabashedly anthemic “Seasons of Love”), a modernistic sensibility about people and, appropriately enough, a Christmas Eve time frame.

But for all Rent’s popularity—it first opened in New York in 1996 and is still running on Broadway—the fabled story of its creation and success remains tempered by the premature death of its creator, Jonathan Larson. Larson, after crafting all of the show’s book, music and lyrics—and fighting gamely to get it mounted in the first place—succumbed to an aortic aneurysm less than 24 hours before the original off-Broadway debut performance. This huge irony has only added to Rent’s relatively brief but storied history.

Rent last played in Nashville in 1999 to big crowds. In many ways, it might be the perfect theatrical event to cap off Christmastime and ring in the New Year.