<\/p>\n
Matthew McGloin<\/a> being cast in TheaterWorks Hartford\u2019s \u201cChristmas on the Rocks\u201d<\/a> could be seen as kind of a Christmas miracle. The New York-based actor makes his Hartford debut as \u201cThe Man\u201d in the multi-playwright hip holiday anthology when it returns for a month-long run from Nov. 25 through Dec. 23.<\/p>\n Jen Cody<\/a> is returning for a fifth season as \u201cThe Woman\u201d (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<\/a> of TV\u2019s \u201cThree\u2019s Company\u201d (not to mention Broadway tours of \u201cWaitress\u201d and \u201cWicked\u201d) is back as the show\u2019s beleaguered bartender.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was just an audition. It\u2019s kind of wild for me. I never worked with that theater. I haven\u2019t worked with anyone else in the show,\u201d McGloin said.<\/p>\n That\u2019s an odder situation than it may sound because \u201cChristmas on the Rocks\u201d has become a tight little community over the years. If you haven\u2019t 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 \u201cThe Man\u201d and \u201cThe Woman\u201d in the program, play all the other roles, which TheaterWorks Hartford\u2019s producing artistic director Rob Ruggiero describes as \u201ccharacters from familiar Christmas specials who are now grown up and feel traumatized by Christmas.\u201d The only character that stretches that general description is \u201cElf on the Shelf,\u201d who\u2019s not necessarily a child and hasn\u2019t so much aged as grown bitter and insulting.<\/p>\n There has only been three other actors to play \u201cThe Man\u201d in the show\u2019s 13-year run, three to play \u201cThe Woman\u201d and four to play \u201cThe Bartender.\u201d 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 \u201cChristmas on the Rocks,\u201d 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\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n This year, when Harry Bouvy \u2014 \u201cThe Man\u201d for the first two years of \u201cChristmas on the Rocks\u201d who returned a decade later and has done it for the past three seasons \u2014 was unable to return, Ruggiero checked with the others who had done the role. When they couldn\u2019t do it, he solicited videotaped auditions.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody loves doing it,\u201d Ruggiero said. \u201cI always say \u2018Don\u2019t do it if you don\u2019t love doing it.\u2019\u201d When he had to find a new \u201cThe Man,\u201d the director knew he needed to find someone who could match the outrageous physical comedy that Cody brings to \u201cChristmas on the Rocks\u201d as Clara from \u201cThe Nutcracker,\u201d Elf on the Shelf and other roles. \u201cI saw a lot of tapes and I knew Matthew would be a good fit.\u201d<\/p>\n By his own account, some of McGloin\u2019s recent acting experiences have prepared him well for taking on familiar characters from well-known holiday TV specials and movies. \u201cIn the past couple of years I was Hedwig in \u2018Hedwig and the Angry Inch,\u2019 the MC in \u2018Cabaret\u2019 and the Scarecrow in \u2018The Wizard of Oz.\u2019 I learned how to step into these iconic roles where audiences already have expectations of what the character is like. It\u2019s an opportunity to give something extra.\u201d<\/p>\n As for being the new guy in a finely tuned crowdpleasing production, McGloin said \u201cI talked about it with Rob. I understand that I\u2019m stepping into a well-oiled machine. If a joke has been going gangbusters, I won\u2019t reinvent it.\u201d<\/p>\n Besides the thrill of a whole new \u201cThe Man,\u201d Ruggiero has predictably messed with the pieces and format of \u201cChristmas on the Rocks\u201d again. Last year, the scene that had opened the show since it began, about Ralphie from \u201cA Christmas Story,\u201d was removed. This year it\u2019s back, newly revised by its playwright, John Cariano of \u201cAlmost, Maine\u201d fame. The twisted \u201cFrosty the Snowman\u201d pastiche \u201cMy Name is KAREN!\u201d by Harris will be not be done this year. Neither will Judy Gold\u2019s cannabis-driven take on \u201cThe Little Drummer Boy.\u201d But there\u2019s the unexpected return of one of the show\u2019s original scenes, the one with Zuzu from \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful Life,\u201d written by steady \u201cChristmas on the Rocks\u201d contributor Jacques Lamarre.<\/p>\n Ruggiero said that the scenes being removed this year may return some other year. He said this year is the closest he\u2019s come to trying something he\u2019s thought about for years \u2014 reconfiguring \u201cChristmas on the Rocks\u201d as two separate evenings of seven scenes each that would play on alternate nights.<\/p>\n McGloin is particularly pleased with the chance to play Kevin McAllister from \u201cHome Alone\u201d in \u201cI Made My Family Disappear\u201d by Wilkas, a scene which debuted last year. \u201cIt\u2019s so special,\u201d the actor said. \u201cThat film was such a big part of my family dynamic with my folks, watching it all together.\u201d<\/p>\n Hermey the Elf in Jeffrey Hatcher\u2019s \u201cSay It Glows,\u201d which has never not been a part of \u201cChristmas on the Rocks,\u201d is \u201cpermission to just be over the top and ridiculous,\u201d McGloin said. His fourth and final role in the show is Charlie Brown in Lamarre\u2019s hilarious-yet-heartwarming \u201cMerry Christmas, Blockhead.\u201d<\/p>\n Besides the new cast member and the shifting scenes, there is another new element in \u201cChristmas on the Rocks\u201d 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cChristmas on the Rocks,\u201d 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\u2019s pretty incredible for a show that Ruggiero calls \u201cthis 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\u2019s so successful now that not doing it every year would be a risk to our bottom line. It\u2019s our \u2018Christmas Carol.\u2019 But mostly, we\u2019re still having fun doing it. It\u2019s a lot of work but we have such fun.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cChristmas on the Rocks\u201d 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<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Matthew McGloin being cast in TheaterWorks Hartford\u2019s \u201cChristmas on the Rocks\u201d could be seen as kind of a Christmas miracle. The New York-based actor makes his Hartford debut as \u201cThe Man\u201d 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2029532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[22116,368436,417886,417888,417887,417885,393251],"class_list":["post-2173328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-christmas","tag-christmas-eve","tag-elf-on-the-shelf","tag-jenn-harris","tag-matthew-mcgloin","tag-rob-ruggiero","tag-theaterworks-hartford"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/In-Black-Rabbit-Jason-Bateman-and-Jude-Law-are-brothers.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2173328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2173328"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2173328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2173329,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2173328\/revisions\/2173329"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2029532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2173328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2173328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2173328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}