Scrooge and Tiny Tim celebrate the holiday season in a previous Scrooge preformance.

A Christmas Carol Apt to Soften Hardest of Hearts

Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim are as ingrained with the holidays as Christmas trees and mistletoe. Once again, the UNL Department of Theatre Arts and the Lied Center for Performing Arts collaborate to present the holiday classic A Christmas Carol. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 7, 8 and 9 and 2 p.m. Dec. 9 and 10.

Since Charles Dickens wrote the novel more than 150 years ago, A Christmas Carol has become a holiday favorite. This classic tale features Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge, the orignal grinch and heartless miser whose haunting Christmas Eve sets him on a path to redemption. This year's production is the 13th by the Department of Theatre Arts.

A new adaptation for this season's performance was written by Jeffery Scott Elwell, department chair. Rob Urbinati is directing and guest performer David Ackroyd (shown at right) is starring as Scrooge.

Elwell, also executive artistic director of the Nebraska Repertory Theatre, has won numerous accolades for playwrighting. Since 1994, 18 of his plays have been produced off off-Broadway in New York.

Urbinati has directed numerous plays, including Eric Begosian's new play for the Lincoln Center Theatre Showcase Series. Urbinati has directed many shows at the Nebraska Shakespeare Festival, the Omaha Theatre Company for Young People and the Firehouse Theatre. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Literary Manager and Dramaturgs of America and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.

David Ackroyd is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and was a charter member of the Yale Repertory Theatre. He made his Broadway debut in Phillip Roth's Unlikely Heroes and followed with Full Circle, Hide and Seek, and the Tony Award-winning production of Children of a Lesser God. His other theater appearances include six seasons at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Hamlet at the New York Shakespeare Festival, A Soldier's Play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf opposite Sally Kellerman, and the American Repertory Theatre's Six Characters in Search of an Author, which he most recently performed at Russia's Moscow Art Theatre.

Ackroyd has appeared in the films Dead On, I Come in Peace, The Mountain Men with Charlton Heston, Raven with Burt Reynolds and Memories of Me with Billy Crystal and in many television roles.

Playwright Elwell will deliver a pre-performance talk beginning 30 minutes prior to curtain in the Lied's Steinhart Romm.

Tickets $28, $24 and $20, half-price for students.

Call the Lied box office at 472-4747 or toll free, (800) 432-3231 for ticket availability.

Tiny Tim's Table: A Family Open House Dec. 9

A family open house featuring the cast of A Christmas Carol is planned for Dec. 9, 4:30-7 p.m. Dec. 9 (between performances of A Christmas Carol) at the Main Lobby of Great Plains Art Collection, Hewit Place, 1155 Q St.

All children will receive a gift courtesy of Russ's Market. Come enjoy apple cider and cookies, listen to holiday songs by the Seward High School Choir, and meet cast members from A Christmas Carol. Participants are asked to bring a nonperishable food item to be donated to the Food Bank of Lincoln.

The event is sponsored by the Great Plains Art Collection, Lied Center for Performing Arts, and the UNL Department of Theatre Arts and Russ's Market.

Undulation by Amy Smith is on display Nov. 28 through Dec. 5 at the Nebraska Union.

MFA Thesis Exhibition Through Dec. 5 at Union Gallery

Ceramist Amy Smith's Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition, "Undulation," opened Nov. 28 and continues through Dec. 5 at the Rotunda Gallery at Nebraska Union.

An opening reception takes place Dec. 1 at 7 p.m. at the gallery. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Smith (shown at left) is a 2000 candidate for a Master of Fine Arts in the Department of Art and Art History, with an emphasis in ceramics, drawing and printmaking. She received her bachelor's with an emphasis in ceramics and drawing from Ohio University.

Smith received a Dean A. Woods Memorial Scholarship from the department, and works as a gallery assistant at University Place Art Center. She has for the past two summers been a ceramics instructor at The Putney School in Vermont.

For information about the exhibition, call Valerie Bender at 472-2631.

Avalanche of Ideas Breathes Life into Lewis Carroll Classic

Theatrix continues the 2000-2001 season with the staging of Alice in Wonderland by The Manhattan Project at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 30, Dec. 1 and 2 and 10 :30 p.m. Dec. 1 in the Studio Theatre, third floor of the Temple Building. Admission is $4 at the door. The performance is intended for adult audiences.

This imaginative, energetic, and sometimes frightening take on the classic story was developed by the Manhattan Project through a unique process. Andre Gregory, one of the theatre's foremost directors of the 1960s and 1970s, worked with an extraordinary ensemble for three years to create this work. The Theatrix ensemble has worked to emulate Gregory's process which is meant to be more collaborative and open than is the norm.

"Improvisation and physical exploration are the key elements in the process and result in an avalanche of ideas and choices," said Gregory Peters, director. During the performance Alice wanders through a Wonderland created with the barest essentials, with the audience's imagination as the most significant design element of the thrust stage.

Peters returns to Theatrix a year after his successful presentation of Death and the Maiden, and is a recent graduate of UNL's Department of Theatre Arts.

"The playfulness of Alice in Wonderland is infectious. It's a look you straight in the face and laugh kind of show," said Stephanie Dodd, who plays Alice. Joining Dodd in the cast is Michael Dragen as the Mad Hatter and Lewis Carroll, and John Elsener as the Cheshire Cat.

It's Pot vs. Plot: Grass Next at Ross Theater

For a director who has built a career spotlighting counter cultural phenomena (Comic Book Confidential, Poetry in Motion), Ron Mann's latest work, Grass, is a fitting addition to his subversive oeuvre. Opening on Dec. 1 at the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater, this savvy and biting examination of America's tireless crusade against marijuana offers some unsettling insight into the legalization controversy.

Nine years in the making, Mann's new documentary Grass may be the new consummate record of marijuana in America, covering the "loco weed" from its introduction via Mexican immigrants to its near legalization in the 1970s. Narrated by hemp guru Woody Harrelson, Grass tracks the efforts of Harry J. Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, as he succeeds in making marijuana illegal in the United States and abroad in a sweeping effort to curb smuggling. Rather than using safe talking heads, Mann revisits the past via rare newsreel footage and dated propaganda which, although hysterical, is also menacing in its effectiveness.

Grass is showing Dec. 1-3. Screenings are at 7 and 9 p.m. on Friday; at 1, 3, 7 and 9 p.m. on Saturday; and at 3, 5, 7 and 9 p.m. on Sunday.

What Next? It's John Waters' Latest at Ross Theater

Drug addicts, heavy artillery, Satan worshippers, transvestites ...Yes, it's a new John Waters film.

The twisted mind behind such cult classics as Pink Flamingos and Hairspray brings this hilarious and outrageous tale of multiplex marauders who have a serious beef with blockbusters, Cecil B. Demented, opening at the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater on Dec. 7.

Cecil B. Demented, played by the always anxious Stephen Dorff, hatches a plan to kidnap Julia Roberts-size star Honey Whitlock (Melanie Griffith at her snottiest) from a Baltimore premiere and force her to play the lead in the ultimate underground film. Whitlock, accustomed to double-wide trailers, fur coats and big budgets, resists the guerrilla tactics at first but slowly starts to feel at home in the art house.

Also showing is a short feature, keys to kingdoms by Nathaniel Geary (Canada, 20 minutes), a stunning poem-to-screen based on the work of celebrated Vancouver poet Bud Osborn.

Cecil B. Demented and keys to kingdoms are showing on Dec. 7-10 and on Dec. 14-17 Screenings are at 7 and 9:15 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays; at 1, 3:15, 7 and 9:15 p.m. on Saturdays; and at 2:30, 4:45, 7 and 9:15 p.m. on Sundays.

Planetarium's Laser Shows Adopt Holiday Themes

Mueller Planetarium at the University of Nebraska State Museum will offer its annual presentation of spectacular holiday and Christmas laser light shows again in December.

Along with "Christmas Laser Fantasy" featuring the music of Mannheim Steamroller, there is the family favorite "Holiday Wonderland" laser show and a country Christmas laser show.

"Holiday Wonderland" features the original "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" by Gene Autry and holiday favorites by Big Crosby, Burl Ives and many others. In "Laser Country Christmas," the music of artists such as Garth Brooks and Vince Gill create the soundtrack for a spectacular laser show.

The schedule for holiday laser shows: "Christmas Laser Fantasy" - Dec. 2, 3, 9 and 10 at 2 p.m.; Dec. 16 at 2 and 3:30 p.m.; Dec. 17 at 2 p.m.; Dec. 24 at 2 and 3:30 p.m.; Dec. 30 at 2 p.m.; Dec. 31 at 2 and 3:30 p.m. "Holiday Wonderland" - Dec. 2, 3, 9 and 17 at 3: 30 p.m.; Dec. 23 at 2 and 3:30 p.m. "Laser Country Christmas" - Dec. 10 at 3:30 p.m.

Tickets go on sale 30 minutes before show time in the Planetarium lobby in Morrill Hall, 14th and U streets. Tickets are $5 for adults, $4 for college students with ID and senior citizens, and $3 for children ages 12 and under.

There will be no astronomy shows in December. They will return in January. For more information, contact Mueller Planetarium at (402) 472-2641 or visit its site on the World Wide Web (http://www.spacelaser.com).