The Ghosts of 'Madame Scrooge: A Christmas Carol Musical'

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A group of haunters has turned a
Christmas carol into a musical one with some

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darker moments. That's coming up on
today's show. Welcome to the show.

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I'm Philip on the HN Show.
We bring you the news and information you

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need to prepare for Halloween. This
show is just one part of all the

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programming we do, so please check
our email newsletter for the full details of

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everything we have going on. Halloween
is over, but there are more than

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one hundred haunts nationwide that have opened
this month for holiday offerings. Those offerings

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range from normal spooky, to festive
spooky, and even to not spooky at

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all. Today, I'm speaking with
Melissa Meyer, co owner of Meyer to

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Meyer Entertainment about Madam Scrooge, a
Christmas Carol musical in Glendale, California.

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This new Broadway style musical puts an
original twist on the famous tale by Charles

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Dickens. While it's still brimming with
Christmas spirit, certain sections are definitely much

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darker. The team at Meyer to
Meyer Entertainment has helped create many horror events,

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including the Elae Haunted Hayride, the
Great Horror camp Out, and House

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of Spirits. So while this isn't
a horror event, per se. I

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wanted to speak with Melissa about the
design and story craft that we can learn

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from in our Christmas events at our
haunts. So here I am speaking with

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Melissa Meyer live in Glendale at the
Nocturne Theater. Madam Scrooge is a musical

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version. It's a new adaptation of
the classic. We stick pretty traditional to

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the storyline, but we give it
a little bit more depth with discovering why

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maybe Madame Scrooge is who she is
versus just being about money. It's music,

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it's characters, it's costumes, it's
choreography, and its wonderful. Our

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brand in general focuses a lot on
the characters. So to bring these very

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fantastical costumes, very fantastical over then
over the top like creature suit type of

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ghosts in there is a huge focus
for us as far as why masks for

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maybe the townsfolk. I know a
big impetis for Justin was to create these

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really wacky caricatures of British townsfolks and
from the day, almost like tim Burton

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esque, where there's characters and certain
elements are over accentuated. Yes, everything

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is over the top, over accentuated, very fantastical. Marley had very scary

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number but also had like a note
of lightheartedness to it. The elements of

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the light hardness come from if something's
a little darker and a little scarier.

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We knew that we had families to
a piece too. We didn't want to

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go straight horror. So you get
that moment of tension and then it's immediately

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lightened by the stop. You know, telling the ghosts, Okay, you've

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kind of break that fourth wall and
bringing those moments in are really just to

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break the tension at certain times.
You want me much much? Seven years,

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seven years to the day. After
seven years, it seems firely no,

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no, no, what, no, thank you. As far as

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the design of the ghosts, a
lot of that goes to Tanya he Here,

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who's our creature designer, has been
We've been working with her for about

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ten years. So present also had
an end to it where it got a

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little bit dark and then future got
very dark. Tell me about those choices.

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I think a lot of the choices
we've noticed in some of the Christmas

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carols that aren't our favorite is the
transition from being Scrooge to not being Scrooge

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anymore is like, all of a
sudden, they've become happy and they want

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to give to the community, And
it always seemed like too quick of a

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switch. So we wanted to actually
frighten Scrooge. We really wanted to focus

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on this is what it could have
been, this is what it can be,

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this is where you're going towards,
so that that emotional switch was a

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much slower progression, and I think
that balances out well with the song life

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Isn't Fair. I felt that that
really resonated with people tell me about that

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song. Yeah, I mean,
first off, Justin wanted to have that

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sexy, jazzy, like feverish feeling, so that was the direction in the

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composition of it. And then from
a lyrics standpoint, it is something that

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every single human can relate to.
I don't think there's anybody that doesn't think

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at some point life isn't fair.
And you know when she talks about it,

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it's just the way that it is. Life just isn't fair. I

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think it's an easy song to relate
to. Funny, there's nothing in life

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I didn't want. Why did you
go with Madame's Rooge? Like, why

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was it important? To shift the
main character. So we knew that we

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wanted to do something different and original
while keeping the tradition, because the Holidays,

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I think, are everything about tradition, but how do you freshen it

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up? And the idea of creating
a complex woman in the eighteen hundreds who

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is a business owner, is dealing
with love and balance and business. We

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thought that that would give Scrooge a
little bit more of a depth than just

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some finy old man who was obsessed
with money. So that was I think

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a big impetus. And then we've
previously worked with Stephanie Hodgten, who is

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our Madam Scrooge, and we knew
that we wanted to bring her voice into

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the show. We actually ended up
writing the entire show around her strengths,

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okay, and so we get to
introduce things like very topical conversations. Women

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are now involved in business more and
so they're giving up time with their family,

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They're giving up time with their spouses. There is tension there. Additionally,

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you have many women that can't bear
children, and that was what women

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were supposed to do. So to
bring in some pretty relatable and topical conversations

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in a very old story felt rich
and complex and appropriate. It was interesting

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to me about how you were able
to take an old story and make it

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I think more specific and relevant,
which potentially could resonate more with current audiences.

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Why those struggles in particular, I
think a lot does come to what

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is really relatable and wasn't really talked
about previously, Especially in the eighteen hundreds.

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You didn't talk about women in business, you didn't talk about women not

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being able to bear children. So
justin focused on certain topics that did exist

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back then but definitely weren't relevant and
were not talked about. I think that

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that's a big portion of it.
You are still telling a story from the

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eighteen hundreds. We're not picking this
up and bringing it fully to modern times.

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That wasn't the angle, So we
had to choose topics that made sense

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still in the eighteen hundreds. With
this depth of character, it's almost like

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she's easier to empathize with and harder
to blame. Guesse, What are you

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hoping from that standpoint that your people
will take away? Yeah, I think

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you did nail it. I think
number one, we are huge holiday Christmas

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people. Our house literally looks like
the national Lampoon's vacation, and so we

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love the holidays. We want people
to go home happy, feeling like they

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saw on traditional holiday show that it
resonates but brings something new. I mean,

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how old is this show. It's
so incredibly old. And then that

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complexity sometimes even if you don't quite
understand the depth of it, you feel

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richer. You go home feeling a
little bit more fulfilled and a little richer,

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and you sometimes might not even necessarily
understand why. So those are the

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two things. Is that like rich
fulfillment and that holiday cheer and joy.

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Maybe what you're saying is like Christmas
can be complicated. That's actually very good,

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yeah, Chris, And you know
the things with tiny tim I can't

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tell you there's probably not a single
person in that audience that doesn't wish they

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had one more day with a human
being that means something to them. So

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again, that relatable ups and downs
of a show of its holidays are really

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tough. Everyone's lost somebody, But
you do get to go home, like

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I said in the end, feeling
uplifted with a snowball fight and fun Christmas

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music. As an audience, I
think that we are so overstimulated that if

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it's just a song and singing,
or just a straight play or just dancing,

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it doesn't feel as rich. So
to be able to combine all of

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it together, I think is what
makes it super magical. Tell me out

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how long is playing and where to
get tickets. It is running until December

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twenty third, and you can get
tickets at the Nocturn Theater, which is

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our new home. And yeah,
it doesn'tntil the twenty third, so there's

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actually only four more shows remaining.
Today's episode was edited by me Philipernandez,

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with post production by David Swape and
original music composed by Chris Thomas. Support

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for today's episode comes from Gantum Lightning
and Controls. Gantum illuminates attractions worldwide with

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the world's smallest intelligent spotlights. From
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With a free demo. Sign up
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scantum dot com slash demo. The
ha N team includes Daryl Plunky, Emily

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Luis Rua, Megan Spells, Gavin
burns and omniadventures Until next time, Stay

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scary. This is a haunted attraction
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