Creative Cauldron will present its holiday classic “The Christmas Cabin of Carnaween” for its final run from Dec. 6 – 22 at ArtSpace Falls Church.
Since it first premiered in 2009, this original adaptation of an Irish folktale has played annually to critical acclaim and full houses. The 2013 production will be the final year for the production, first conceived and adapted by Producing Director Laura Connors Hull.
“Christmas Cabin of Carnaween” is set in the time of the great potato famine in Ireland and follows the journey of Oona Hegarty, the abandoned daughter of a family of tinkers. Oona is taken in by the Donegal village folk who inhabit Carnaween. She makes her way caring for the young and the sick and the elderly, but as a tinker’s child she is never quite fully accepted. The years pass and her yearning to have a cabin of her own would go unfulfilled were in not for the intervention of some wee folk on a snowy Christmas Eve.
Katie Culligan will play the role of Oona for the fourth time. Culligan has been seen in Creative Cauldron’s 2010 Helen Hayes Awards Recommended production of Nevermore and this summer’s sold-out cabaret performances “Voices of Vantage.” Culligan will be joined by an ensemble of storytellers and village folk that includes Judy Butler, E Augustus Knapp, James Lynch, and Laura Quackenbush Steele. The ensemble also includes members of Creative Cauldron’s young Learning Theater program: Anna Brotman-Krass, Libby Brooke, Olivia Laurine, Grace Rollins, Sarah Tarpgaard, and Alex Weinstein. The production is underscored by the live Irish music trio Magh Meall featuring Rosemary Gano on flute and whistle, Mary Wilkerson on fiddle, and Katie Boyle on guitar.
Performances will take place Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. There will be no 7 p.m. show on Dec. 22. ArtSpace Falls Church is located at 410 S. Maple Ave., Falls Church. Tickets are $18 for general admission and $15 for students and seniors. For more information, visit creativecauldron.org or call 703-436-9948.
