Arviat (Jan 12/05) - Qitiqliq High drama teacher Gord Billard decided to go back to his Arviat roots for his 2004 Christmas production this past month.

The Qitiqliq Music and Drama Club performed the Charles Dickens' classic A Christmas Carol, which was the first play Billard directed upon his arrival in Arviat in 2000.

Billard said he expanded the text of the play by taking three different scripts and blending them together into one production.

"That approach allowed me to make the play a bit longer and more importantly, add some extra characters so we could involve more kids in the production," said Billard.

"I also doctored the script and toned down the language so it was simple enough for the kids to handle.

"Basically, I got away from most of the old English used in the scripts."

About 40 actors had roles in the production, which also featured close to 30 choir members. The roles of Scrooge, his nephew Fred, and Tiny Tim were double cast. "The two boys who played Scrooge (Leo Ussak and Harry Manilak) had more than 250 lines each to remember.

"They really worked their guts out putting it together and did an amazing job."

Billard said he had looked at a number of other scripts, but decided to reprise A Christmas Carol because of the students' familiarity with the production.

He said the fact the club only had about six weeks to prepare after its Thanksgiving play was another reason he decided to go with the Dickens tale.

"I was a bit worried the kids might not get too excited about doing a play they'd already done in the past, but they really latched onto it when I went over the script in class."

Billard said the ghosts in A Christmas Carol always attract the kids because they enjoy tales about the supernatural.

He said this year's production was greatly enhanced by the use of a wider variety of special effects.

"We had the ghosts coming in on centre stage with special lighting and we even had a fog machine to add to the mystical nature of it all.

"A lot of the adults came up after the show to say they were really impressed by what the kids were able to do in such a short period of time."