This holiday season, Tennessee Repertory Theatre will present the David Alford’s Christmas Down Home featuring Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory.” This holiday sampler runs December 11 – 12 and 18 at TPAC’s Johnson Theater.
“I'm so happy that we're able to present David Alford’s Christmas Down Home in a limited engagement.” says Tennessee Rep Producing Artistic Director René D. Copeland. “The centerpiece of this variety show of holiday song and story is David Alford’s one-man rendition--with Paul Carrol Binkley’s accompaniment and original score--of Truman Capote’s ‘A Christmas Memory,’ which has been an important part of Nashville’s holiday season in years past. This wonderful work of theatre was originally staged by Mockingbird Theatre during the holidays back when David and I were its artistic leaders. Since that time this piece has been in demand and presented nearly every year somewhere, in some context, including here at Tennessee Rep. So, I know there are many people who cannot wait to get your Capote ‘fix.’ I know my holiday is never complete without it and if you’re new to this, you will soon understand why so many people long to hear this story every year.”
Alford, who had retired his rendition of “A Christmas Memory,” talks about what “A Christmas Memory” by Truman Capote means to him and why he felt the need to bring it back.
“I love the Capote piece. I’ve loved doing it, and I love those words,” says Alford. “But after my dad died, I really felt like I needed to put it away for a lot of personal reasons. And I really felt like I had done it for the last time. But something happened when I went to Pulaski. I guess memories of my childhood started bubbling up."
“When someone called asking about a Christmas performance I realized how much I missed the piece. So I contacted Paul Carrol Binkley, and we decided to flesh the show out a little bit with some other pieces, with a theme of what Christmas was like when I was a kid, thinking about my parents, my grandparents."
“So the Capote piece came up, and we pulled a couple of pieces from a show that we had done at Mockingbird Theatre for years and years called A Southern Christmas Sampler, and we fleshed out the remainder of the show with a lot more music. As you may know, Paul is a terrific instrumentalist, composer, producer, arranger, and he has some great arrangements of other traditional Christmas songs that we wanted to do. It’s not so much a play as it is a sort of revue—a collection of stories and songs of what Christmas used to be way back when, particularly in the rural south, when it was more about family and tradition and community… less about ‘things’ and more about people.”
Paul Carrol Binkley shares his thoughts on the show as well.
“Part of what Christmas Down Home is for me and David is sort of a reunion of our collaborations as musicians,” says Paul Carrol Binkley. “And David, as we all know, has done a lot of work in the theatre: a lot of acting, a lot of directing. But one thing he really loves to do is play music, to sing, to write songs, and to pick a little bit. David will be picking quite a bit with us for this show and will be singing a bunch of songs. Christmas Down Home will be as if we’re sitting around the living room telling Christmas stories. It’ll be funny, and it’ll make you cry, too.”
In addition to Alford and Binkley, the cast features Brad Albin, Toni Ferguson, Kahle Reardon, and Erin Ramsey.
Since 1985, Tennessee Repertory Theatre has been a critically acclaimed regional theatre, creating the highest quality professional productions and by serving as a prime cultural, educational, and economic resource within the Nashville and Middle Tennessee communities. Tennessee Rep produces work that is designed, built, and rehearsed in Nashville by highly skilled actors, designers, directors, and technicians. A non-profit organization, Tennessee Rep is committed to consistently delivering thought-provoking theatre each year. For more information on the Tennessee Repertory Theatre, please visit www.tennesseerep.org.
