The Long Christmas Ride Home

Riverside - Riverside Theatre presents a unique opportunity to see the area premiere of The Long Christmas Ride Home. Written by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, Paula Vogel, the show combines Japanese puppetry, original music and storytelling for an unforgettable theatrical experience.

Vogel’s The Long Christmas Ride Home presents a moving and memorable portrayal of one family stretched to the edge of the familial abyss. During the course of a Christmas gone awry, the company of actors and their puppet counterparts provide a narrative in which the lines between past, present and future begin to blur in the lives of three children. The Long Christmas Ride Home integrates contemporary theatre techniques with a centuries-old art form of Japanese Bunraku puppetry. In the midst of extraordinary beauty, heartbreaking humor and unthinkable loss, Vogel simply argues that good things can come in odious packages. Director Mark Hunter and longtime Riverside Theatre artistic associate argues that a deep conviction runs throughout the play, “that beauty is transcendent. [The Long Christmas Ride Home] elevates the receiver to another realm”. The cast includes Riverside Theatre Artistic Directors Ron Clark and Jody Hovland in the roles of the narrators and the parents.

Hovland and Clark were eager to jump at the chance to perform this beautiful piece. Complicated elements such as Bunraku puppetry, and the need for original music and choreography required the talents of an experienced artistic team. Jody Hovland says that “the ability to produce The Long Christmas Ride Home demanded just the right confluence of available artistic partners – including the right actors, designers and, most critically, a puppetmaster able to not only build the Bunraku puppets but to train the puppeteers and collaborate on the production. Our artistic connection to Stephanie Braun Jacobson – who performed at Riverside Theatre before training in New York with The Jim Henson Studios – and Stephanie’s resounding “yes!” to the opportunity made everything else possible.

Puppeteer Stephanie Braun Jacobson displays stunning craftsmanship in her creation of the four foot tall lifelike puppets. Jacobson received her MFA in acting from the University of Iowa. She worked for three years with The Jim Henson Company in New York for productions of Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, Puppet Up!, Bears In The Big Blue House and others. She has also built and designed puppets for several Off Broadway productions.

The artistic team responsible for this theatrical wonder is rounded out by composer Don Chamberlain, choreographer Daniel Stark, scenic designer Edward Matthew Walter, costume designer Jenny Nutting Kelchen, and lighting designer Steven Hunt.

The acting personnel for The Long Christmas Ride Home, a co-production with Cornell College, features Jody Hovland (Narrator/Woman), Ron Clark (Narrator/Man), Ellen Kirk (Rebecca), Charlie Thurston (Stephen), Natalie Kropf (Claire), and Alex Williams (Minister/Dancer).

Vogel, arguably one of the most important American playwrights of our time, is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of How I Learned to Drive, produced at Riverside Theatre in 1999. She is the Adele Kellenberg Seaver Professor of Creative Writing at Brown University where she directs the MFA Playwriting program. Other works include The Mineola Twins, The Baltimore Waltz, and Hot’N’Throbbing.

Tickets are available by phone at (319) 338-7672, online at www.riversidetheatre.org or in person at the Riverside Theatre box office, located at 213 N. Gilbert St., Iowa City, IA.