Photo by Savannah Schmidt
Ellise Mayor has always loved Truman Capote, so when the opportunity to play a favorite character from one of his short stories, “A Christmas Memory,” came up, she took it.
“It is such a wonderful story,” Mayor said. “I am usually pretty firm in that I don’t ever perform during the holidays, but this was just an opportunity I could not turn down. I am just giddy over getting to bring this character to life.”
Mayor will play Sook in the Homewood Theatre’s production of “A Christmas Memory,” which will debut Dec. 5 and run through Dec. 15.
The story, set in the South in the 1930s, centers on a young boy, Buddy, and his elderly cousin, Sook.
The story is semi-autobiographical and concentrates on country life, the unique friendship between the two characters and the concept of giving during the Christmas season.
Homewood Theatre Executive Director Kyle Bass said one of the main scenes of the play centers around making fruitcake, and all members of the audience will receive fruitcake at the show.
Capote’s short story was originally published in Mademoiselle magazine in December 1956 and was later reprinted in “The Selected Writing of Truman Capote” in 1963.
The story has since been published in various editions over the years, but Bass said they could not find performance rights to any published stageplays of the short story.
“We had to contact the Truman Capote Literary Trust, explain what we would like to do and be approved to do it,” Bass said. “By the time we had all of the legalities formalized, we didn’t really have time for our usual audition process, so we reached out to some folks we had in mind to play the characters.”
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Photo by Savannah Schmidt
(L to R) Kyle Bass, Stark Newton, and Ellise Mayor practice lines for their December show, Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory" at the Homewood Theatre on Oct. 23, 2024.
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Photo by Savannah Schmidt
(L to R) Kyle Bass, Stark Newton, and Ellise Mayor practice lines for their December show, Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory" at the Homewood Theatre on Oct. 23, 2024.
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Photo by Savannah Schmidt
(L to R) Kyle Bass, Stark Newton, and Ellise Mayor practice lines for their December show, Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory" at the Homewood Theatre on Oct. 23, 2024.
Bass said Mayor is a Birmingham theater staple and someone he knew would be fabulous in the role of Sook.
“We then found an incredible young man named Stark Newton to play Buddy,” Bass said. “We also needed a really good voice for our narrator, and it will be played by Channel 6 television news reporter Russell Jones. David Coker, another Birmingham theater treasure, will fill in for Russell on a couple of performances.”
Mayor said one of the lines from the story that she looks forward to reciting in her best Southern accent is “It is fruitcake weather, Buddy.”
“Sook is a character that some could say is very simple-minded, which may explain the closeness she has with Buddy,” Mayor said. “It is just a really lovely story overall. It is kind of different than anything I have ever done before, really. I am looking forward to the challenge. I think my challenge and goal is to complete a character and develop a relationship with little Buddy without having a lot of dialogue between the two of us.I am really looking forward to working with Stark, and I think he is perfectly suited for this adventure as Buddy.”
Mayor said this is not a typical stage performance, and it requires each character to represent the story by simply using the text.
“We are tied to the words as they are written in the short story,” Mayor said. “It will be representational rather than literal.”
Mayor said she began her official acting career when she was in the fourth grade at Birmingham Children’s Theatre.
“I have been in acting for many decades,” she said. “I am really anticipating a great turnout for this show. It is just the best holiday piece. I remember my father being a big fan of this story, so because of that it has always been special to me.”
Bass said the idea to perform this particular story at Homewood Theatre originated sometime over the last year.
“I watched the miniseries ‘Feud: Capote Verses the Swans,’ and that reminded me of his short story, ‘A Christmas Memory,’” Bass said. “I knew of Mr. Capote’s connections to the state of Alabama and I thought it might be interesting for our Christmas show.”
Lexi Bresnan, who normally works as Homewood Theatre’s education director, will try out a new role for this play and serve as assistant director.
“I really wanted to be invested in what all we were doing as a theater,” Bresnan said. “Kyle wanted me to be involved in some of the adult productions we put on, so it worked out that I would be the assistant director for this show.”
Bresnan, a Homewood native, said she is excited about the new aspect of helping direct a play.
“Last year we didn’t do a Christmas show, so this year it will be really neat to put on something during the Christmas season,” she said. “I think because we are one of the first to ever get rights to this, it is neat in the aspect of we get to be creative with our cast, but also we are sort of under a little bit of pressure because this hasn’t really ever been done before. I think it can be neat to look at what others have done and get a feel for how you want to adapt something, but in this case we are kind of doing it all on our own.”
Rehearsals for the play began in mid-November.
“We start our rehearsals at 6:30 p.m. because most of our people have other jobs and we want to make this accessible,” Bresnan said. “Everyone can eat their dinner and then come and start doing read-throughs. My main job will be watching everything and making sure it all makes sense, making sure the characters are really coming to life and writing notes. Just mainly helping Kyle bring it all to life.”
Bresnan said she was familiar with Truman Capote but not with this particular story prior to the theater deciding to put it on.
“Everyone that I have spoken to that knows the story has loved it, so I am really looking forward to seeing how it all takes shape,” she said.
Bass said the play will be very close to the original version of the short story.
“The narrator will be reading the story and then the live action will take over the story,” he said. “These actors are going to really make the story come to life, they are incredible. And then we have an extra bonus that our background music will be supplied by local musician Bobby Horton. He is supplying us with recordings of Christmas music to be our background music behind the entire production, and after each performance, our house baker, Lori Mercer, will provide fruitcake for everyone who attends.”
Bass said he hopes those that come to the show will leave with a “nice, warm feeling about a simpler life.”
“I hope that people will learn about friendships between people who are very different, and about how even through loss and loneliness we can still celebrate the way we care about one another at Christmas time,” Bass said.
For more information about the show, visit homewoodtheatre.com or call 205-873-1816.
Homewood Theatre is located at 1831 28th Ave. S.
