Month: November 2015

 

One of the funniest moments in A Christmas Story is when the hound dogs, owned by the Bumpus family next door, break in and devour the Christmas turkey at Ralphie Parker’s house. These dogs are notorious for hounding Ralphie’s father by eating the Parker’s mail and one of his shoes. “We knew it was essential to find a way to portray this iconic scene. Since we didn’t have any hound dogs audition,” explained A Christmas Story director, Julian Wiles, “we had to be creative. We learned from our friends at Pet Helpers that they had a beautiful hound dog name Vincent at their shelter. So Victor Clark, who plays Ralphie’s father, and I headed over to the shelter to do a photoshoot with Vincent, a massive but incredibly friendly blood hound. Since we already planned to use a number of projections in the show, adding photos of Vic and Vincent seemed like the perfect solution. Despite his humongous size, Vincent is a sweet and obedient dog and our two actors (man and man’s best friend) got along great. I photographed some fun shots, as you can see featured in this blog. To make the pictures look like old family photos that you might see from the 1940s, we converted them to black and white. Sound Designer DJ Edwards added some barking sound effects and the Bumpus hounds came to life!”

 

Ralphie in this year’s live production of A Christmas Story is played by Miles Kendrick, a sixth grade theatre major at Charleston County’s School of the Arts. Some folks might remember Miles because three years ago he played Ralphie’s little brother Randy. “It’s kind of weird playing the big brother now. I enjoyed playing Randy, especially getting to put oatmeal all over my face and hands” says Miles. When asked how he got started in the theatre, Miles says it was his big sister, Sophie, who got him interested. Sophie had performed with Charleston Stage in A Christmas Carol and Peter Pan and was a member of Charleston Stage’s TheatreWings High School Apprentice Program. She is currently a freshman at DePaul University in Chicago studying Communications. Miles’s first role was as an Oompa Loompa in Charleston Stage’s SummerStage production of Raold Dahl’s classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  “I love Raold Dahl,” says Miles. “I just finished his autobiography and my goal is to read all of his books. Right now I’m reading The BFG.” When asked what his favorite part of acting is, Miles says “What I really like about acting is becoming characters who are nothing like me and doing things I would never do in real life.”

Miles, a member of Charleston Stage’s Performance Troupe, has also appeared in Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.