Malkia’s Christmas Carol

Malkia Stampley (above) is directing the Goodman Theatre’s 48th annual production of A Christmas Carol (in previews now, opening Sunday, and running through New Year’s Eve), and reflects how her experience in other productions, as well as her background as both a performer and a person, informs her approach to Dickens’s classic tale. Malkia reveals how she’s amplifying the diversity the production has had for decades by allowing characters to sound like what they look like; how the story of Ebenezer Scrooge’s redemption is perhaps more important than ever; how she’s shaping the show around the talents the actors bring; how the story changes because of the way the world has changed; and how the timeless story of A Christmas Carol belongs to everyone. (Length 23:45)

By austin, ago

Directing ‘Primary Trust’

Director Malkia Stampley, whose beautiful production of Eboni Booth’s 2024 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Primary Trust runs at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre through November 3, 2024, discusses how she embraced the play’s delicate intimacy and transformed a literary script into a theatrical event. Malkia reveals the ways in which a live audience and actors playing multiple characters lift a potentially naturalistic play into a theatrical realm; how she eschewed melodrama and discovered the mystery and curiosity she was looking for; how clowns can find the funny and serious actors the gravitas; and the value of always looking for – and finding – the light. (Length 18:23)

By austin, ago