The Haunting of Tiny Tim (formerly: Uncle Eb) by Andrew Roblyer (The Octarine Accord, Dec 2022)
My Roles:
Playwright, Producer, Director, Sound, Lighting, and Co-Scenic Designer
DIRECTOR - ANDREW ROBLYER
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR - SLOANE TEAGLE
DRAMATURG - MANDY MERSHON
LIGHTING & SOUND DESIGN - ANDREW ROBLYER
SCENIC DESIGN - MANDY MERSHON & ANDREW ROBLYER
PRODUCTION PHOTOGRPAPHER - PIN LIM
Why This Show?
The Haunting of Tiny Tim (formerly titled Uncle Eb) came about because I needed a small-cast, low-budget holiday show that would make money for This Is Water Theatre, the company I was running in College Station, TX from 2013-2018. I didn’t like most of what was out there (the most popular one-person holiday show at the time was Santaland Diaries), so decided to write my own. I made the choice to put a spin on a known IP in the hopes it would drive up ticket sales, and upon re-reading A Christmas Carol, I became fascinated with the relationship between Scrooge and Tiny Tim, wondering what the future of their friendship might have looked like. The alternate-universe/modern setting came out of necessity for cheap costumes, but ultimately provided a vehicle for exploration of important topics. In 2022 I decided to mount it again in Houston, this time directing it rather than performing in it.
Lessons Learned
The biggest takeaway from this production was the realization that even though I wrote it to perform it myself, the script was still successful in the hands of other performers. It was deeply meaningful to get to guide other performers through the experience of performing a 90-minute one-person show.
Concept
This show was originally written for a particular space, so re-mounting it in a more traditional theatrical space presented some interesting challenges, namely with regard to the space being significantly larger (2015 was in a converted garage that had barely 30 seats, while the 2022 version was in a large blackbox with 75 seats). Thankfully, the text does enough work that minimal staging adjustments needed to be made, and we were able to capture the same audience-in-the-action feeling that we did in 2015 through careful spacing.