
Most productions of “A Christmas Carol” don’t require forty-five actors. But that’s how many people auditioned for a recent staging near Hardwick, Vermont, and Rose Friedman, the director, decided to populate a whole village and cast them all. Friedman is the co-founder of the Civic Standard, a community organization based in Hardwick. “A Christmas Carol” was its third production, though the Civic is not exactly a theatre company, and many of the people in the show were not exactly seasoned performers. But they all braved whiteout conditions to attend a...