Destination Theatre adds improv to ‘A Christmas Carol’

Growing up in St. Petersburg, Corey Phelps was smitten with live theater. He appeared in his first play while a student at Our Savior Lutheran School, then attended Osceola High School, where he was the Drama Club president. Phelps earned a B.A. in Theater from Western Carolina University.

He lives in Atlanta now, and is co-founder and artistic director of the nonprofit Destination Theatre, which tours the southeastern United States with a rotation of different productions – comedies and musicals, mostly.

“Sometimes,” Phelps explains, “it’s a Theatre for Young Audiences tour – so theater for kids in youth centers and schools. We have a large senior living tour; we’ve toured musical revues to over 50 senior living communities throughout Georgia. That’s a really beautiful experience.”

Destination Theatre casts frequently perform at Boley Centers, including those in Pinellas County. Boley Centers Inc. is a nonprofit organization serving individuals with mental disabilities, individuals and families who are homeless, veterans and youth.

“If we had a tagline, it would be ‘Destination Theatre: Meeting you where you are,’” Phelps explains. “Meeting you geographically, but also where you are in life. That’s a big part of our education department. We create specific theater arts curriculums for specific student populations, of all ages. So that could be at an at-risk youth center, at behavioral centers for adults – or a ritzy private school in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta.

“The idea is, we believe theater is for everybody, so how do we best meet people where they are, and introduce them to theater in a meaningful way?”

Some Destination Theatre shows are just plain fun. For example, The Greatest Christmas Story Ever Told by Two People, or … A Christmas Carol? This fast-moving, freewheeling 65-minute adaptation of the Dickens classic visits thestudio@620 this weekend for four performances, two on Saturday and two on Sunday.

It was a big hit when it was here over the 2022 holiday season.

By way of explanation: “One person plays Scrooge. One person plays every other character, 25 of them. We say it’s A Christmas Carol meets Whose Line is it, Anyway? There’s a ton of improv, and we pull the audience up onstage. The audience actually becomes the Cratchit family; we have them all sit around the dinner table, and I prompt them to do things, and I’ll mess with ‘em, that kind of thing.

“But it’s also wonderfully heartfelt. It captures the entire essence of A Christmas Carol in this hour-and-five-minutes that we’re all together.”

Barry Westmoreland will be Scrooge at the St. Pete performances. Phelps himself will play Bob Cratchit, Fezziwig, Mrs. Fezziwig, all four ghosts, Fred, Tiny Tim … you get the idea.

“It really tests your actor skills,” he laughs.

Much of the language is taken directly from Dickens. “But we added moments for us to stop the story and change some things up,” Phelps reports. “For example, if at any moment during the show the actor playing Scrooge doesn’t like the narration given, he can call ‘Buzz!’ – at which point I have to change the narration to meet his needs and expectations.”

Should ‘Buzz!’ be called, for example, after Phelps-the-narrator says “Scrooge let out a loud grunt,” he might then say “Scrooge sang a Chris Stapleton song.”

It’s that kind of show.

“The show kind of gets re-curated every night,” says Phelps. “Because we’re in the room with this audience, with whatever energy they give us.

“So our 2 p.m. matinee last year was a lot of senior groups and that kind of thing, and we knew we had to shift the show a little bit and lean into their humor.

“But the Saturday night show, that got a little PG-13. This is my favorite project I get to do all year long.”

Find more information, and tickets, here.