For Immediate Release: October 5, 2006
Media Contact: Chuck Reece, Bristol Riverside Theatre, 215.785.0100

The Holiday season starts early this year at Bristol Riverside Theatre as The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge takes stage November 14, 2006. The play is the second offering in BRT's 20th Anniversary Season and the second play by New Jersey playwright Mark Brown, who wrote the adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days, which ran in September and October at BRT to outstanding reviews. The Philadelphia Inquirer said "Bristol's Around the World soars above and beyond." The Times of Trenton remarked "the show demonstrates the essence of theater." The Bucks County Courier-Times praised it as a "thoroughly well-written play" and went on to state "we can hardly wait," for The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge.

Mark Brown was born in Woodbury, New Jersey and attended Hopewell Valley High School, just thirty minutes from BRT. After graduating from Hopewell, he attended Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina before returning to Rider University in New Jersey to finish his undergraduate studies. At the age of 19 he became an acting company member at McCarter Theatre in Princeton, under Artistic Director Nagle Jackson. After five years at McCarter the desire to delve deeper into his craft led him to continue his theatrical studies at American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, where BRT Founding Producing Director Susan Atkinson had worked prior to his arrival.

Upon his completion of the ACT certificate program, Mr. Brown's career led him to spend three years in Chicago as an actor and founder of a theatre company with Jeff Lieber, co-creator of the television series Lost. From Chicago he moved south and spent four years in Orlando, Florida where his connections have allowed his playwriting skills to be showcased. Since his departure, the Orlando-UCF Shakespeare Festival produced the world premiere productions of The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge, and Poe: Deep Into That Darkness Peering, and also mounted an early production of Around the World in 80 Days. His adaptation of The Little Prince broke box office records at the Orlando Theatre Project and the Hippodrome Theatre in Gainesville, Florida.

Mr. Brown has since settled in Los Angeles with his wife Nicki Genovese, who is the General Manager of South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa, CA. He works in the Los Angeles area continuing to write and act, appearing at South Coast Rep, in films such as Out of Sight with George Clooney, Holy Man with Eddie Murphy and Jeff Goldblum and on T.V. in From the Earth to the Moon, Ally McBeal, Diagnosis Murder, and in numerous commercials. They have a daughter, Michayla Chenxi Griffith Brown, whom they adopted from China when she was seven months old.

"It is a rarity to offer back-to-back plays by the same author," Bristol Riverside Theatre's Artistic Director Keith Baker said when asked about the scheduling of two shows by the same playwright. "But Mark's script for Around the World in 80 Days was the perfect way to kick off our 20th Anniversary Season in its celebration not only of the actor but in continuing our theatre's journey. The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge is such a remarkable new holiday comedy that I just didn't want to wait another year to put it on the stage. It is allowing us to pull together a wonderful cast for what promises to be a memorable production."

Picking up where A Christmas Carol leaves off, we find that Scrooge, one year after his "miraculous" Christmas, has brought charges against Jacob Marley and the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet-to-Come for "attempted murder, kidnapping, breaking and entering, trespassing, stalking, slander, theft, pain and suffering, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress." As the courtroom comedy unfolds, we see how the Spirits attempt to defend their actions and what has brought Scrooge to file his outrageous complaint in the first place.

In the premiere production of The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge, one reviewer opined that Mr. Brown's script "offers a fresh spin on beloved characters, revealing new facets of their personalities while honoring familiar source material.You can't see it without reacting. You can't watch it without laughing. You can't leave it without thinking." The show premiered in December 2004 at the Orlando-UCF Shakespeare Festival and is fast becoming an addition to the holiday canon.

The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge by Mark Brown runs November 14 through December 10 for a special four-week engagement in anticipation of increased Holiday interest. All performances are at Bristol Riverside Theatre, 120 Radcliffe Street, in Historic Bristol Borough, Pennsylvania. Tickets are $29 for previews and $34-$37 for regular performances and are available online at www.BRTstage.org, or by calling the BRT Box Office at 215-785-0100. BRT thanks Verizon, Grand Sponsor of its 20th Anniversary Season.

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