Matthew McGloin being cast in TheaterWorks Hartford’s “Christmas on the Rocks” could be seen as kind of a Christmas miracle. The New York-based actor makes his Hartford debut as “The Man” in the multi-playwright hip holiday anthology when it returns for a month-long run from Nov. 25 through Dec. 23.
Jen Cody is returning for a fifth season as “The Woman” (though it should be noted that one of her roles, Elf on the Shelf, has the voice of Joe Pesci and seems rather androgynous), and Richard Kline of TV’s “Three’s Company” (not to mention Broadway tours of “Waitress” and “Wicked”) is back as the show’s beleaguered bartender.
“It was just an audition. It’s kind of wild for me. I never worked with that theater. I haven’t worked with anyone else in the show,” McGloin said.
That’s an odder situation than it may sound because “Christmas on the Rocks” has become a tight little community over the years. If you haven’t experienced it yet, the show has a cast of three. One actor plays the bartender at a small neighborhood bar on a quiet Christmas Eve. The other two actors, dubbed “The Man” and “The Woman” in the program, play all the other roles, which TheaterWorks Hartford’s producing artistic director Rob Ruggiero describes as “characters from familiar Christmas specials who are now grown up and feel traumatized by Christmas.” The only character that stretches that general description is “Elf on the Shelf,” who’s not necessarily a child and hasn’t so much aged as grown bitter and insulting.
There has only been three other actors to play “The Man” in the show’s 13-year run, three to play “The Woman” and four to play “The Bartender.” Two former actors in the show, Matt Wilkas and Jenn Harris, became the writers of some of the new scenes in it. When one of the performers has to withdraw from “Christmas on the Rocks,” Ruggiero, who conceived the show, directs it every year and makes a point of refreshing it regularly with new scenes or fresh routines, first asks previous cast members if they’d like to return before even considering someone new. New cast members often have a connection to someone else who has been involved in the show.
This year, when Harry Bouvy — “The Man” for the first two years of “Christmas on the Rocks” who returned a decade later and has done it for the past three seasons — was unable to return, Ruggiero checked with the others who had done the role. When they couldn’t do it, he solicited videotaped auditions.
“Everybody loves doing it,” Ruggiero said. “I always say ‘Don’t do it if you don’t love doing it.’” When he had to find a new “The Man,” the director knew he needed to find someone who could match the outrageous physical comedy that Cody brings to “Christmas on the Rocks” as Clara from “The Nutcracker,” Elf on the Shelf and other roles. “I saw a lot of tapes and I knew Matthew would be a good fit.”
By his own account, some of McGloin’s recent acting experiences have prepared him well for taking on familiar characters from well-known holiday TV specials and movies. “In the past couple of years I was Hedwig in ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch,’ the MC in ‘Cabaret’ and the Scarecrow in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ I learned how to step into these iconic roles where audiences already have expectations of what the character is like. It’s an opportunity to give something extra.”
As for being the new guy in a finely tuned crowdpleasing production, McGloin said “I talked about it with Rob. I understand that I’m stepping into a well-oiled machine. If a joke has been going gangbusters, I won’t reinvent it.”
Besides the thrill of a whole new “The Man,” Ruggiero has predictably messed with the pieces and format of “Christmas on the Rocks” again. Last year, the scene that had opened the show since it began, about Ralphie from “A Christmas Story,” was removed. This year it’s back, newly revised by its playwright, John Cariano of “Almost, Maine” fame. The twisted “Frosty the Snowman” pastiche “My Name is KAREN!” by Harris will be not be done this year. Neither will Judy Gold’s cannabis-driven take on “The Little Drummer Boy.” But there’s the unexpected return of one of the show’s original scenes, the one with Zuzu from “It’s a Wonderful Life,” written by steady “Christmas on the Rocks” contributor Jacques Lamarre.
Ruggiero said that the scenes being removed this year may return some other year. He said this year is the closest he’s come to trying something he’s thought about for years — reconfiguring “Christmas on the Rocks” as two separate evenings of seven scenes each that would play on alternate nights.
McGloin is particularly pleased with the chance to play Kevin McAllister from “Home Alone” in “I Made My Family Disappear” by Wilkas, a scene which debuted last year. “It’s so special,” the actor said. “That film was such a big part of my family dynamic with my folks, watching it all together.”
Hermey the Elf in Jeffrey Hatcher’s “Say It Glows,” which has never not been a part of “Christmas on the Rocks,” is “permission to just be over the top and ridiculous,” McGloin said. His fourth and final role in the show is Charlie Brown in Lamarre’s hilarious-yet-heartwarming “Merry Christmas, Blockhead.”
Besides the new cast member and the shifting scenes, there is another new element in “Christmas on the Rocks” this year. The old-school projection screens on either side of the stage have been replaced with fancy new video screens that allow for an expanded intro section for the show.
Like several other Connecticut theaters, TheaterWorks Hartford has been having an exceptional year. Ruggiero said single ticket sales have doubled and the subscriber numbers have bounced back up to nearly 3,000.
“Christmas on the Rocks,” which is not part of the subscription season, was hitting between two-thirds and three-quarters of its sales goals two weeks before it opened and has already had its run extended by two additional performances. That’s pretty incredible for a show that Ruggiero calls “this strange idea I had 13 years ago that I thought would be a one-off, or maybe a two- or three-off at best. It’s so successful now that not doing it every year would be a risk to our bottom line. It’s our ‘Christmas Carol.’ But mostly, we’re still having fun doing it. It’s a lot of work but we have such fun.”
“Christmas on the Rocks” runs Nov. 25 through Dec. 23 at TheaterWorks Hartford, 233 Pearl St., Hartford. Performances are Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 4 and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 and 6:30 p.m. with added performances Dec. 18 and 23 at 3:30 p.m. and Dec. 22 at 7:30 p.m. There is no performance on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 27, and no 6:30 p.m. performance on Nov. 30. $43-$78. twhartford.org.
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