THEATER

Elf the Musical, Santa and all, swings into Robinson Center

Sam Hartley plays Buddy and Ken Clement plays Santa in the touring company of Elf the Musical.
Sam Hartley plays Buddy and Ken Clement plays Santa in the touring company of Elf the Musical.

Ken Clement plays a jolly old elf in Elf the Musical, onstage this weekend at Little Rock's Robinson Center Performance Hall.

Not the title character. Sam Hartley plays Buddy, who as a young child having mistakenly crawled into Santa's bag of gifts, finds himself an elf out of water at the North Pole.

Elf the Musical

3 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday, Robinson Center Performance Hall, West Markham Street and Broadway, Little Rock. Celebrity Attractions presents the NETworks Presentations’ touring production. Music and lyrics by Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin, book by Thomas Meehan and Bob Martin, based on the 2003 New Line Cinema film.

Tickets: $28-$73 (plus service charges)

Sponsor: Arkansas Federal Credit Union

(501) 244-8800

ticketmaster.com

Clement plays Santa Claus, aka St. Nicholas, which he says lets songwriters Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin explore a few other rhyme possibilities.

"In the lyrics of certain songs they hit a couple of the other names," he says. "Gotta find something that rhymes with 'ridiculous'? It's 'St. Nicholas'! I don't think that's an actual example, but ...."

Clement is an Elf tour veteran. "This is my fourth year," he says. "It has become my little Christmas present to myself -- I take a little Christmas vacation and go tour the country with this. It's great for getting into the mood."

The seasonal nature of the material, of course, means nobody is doing Elf tours in, say, June.

"No, no matter how good the ticket sales are, you're not going to extend the Christmas shows," he agrees. "We're closing the first weekend after Dec. 25.

"It's a short, quick little tour. Because of that, they put out two tours every year -- same wardrobe, same direction, same choreography. We rehearse together in New York, which is always a lot of fun, because I can steal bits from the other Santa Claus." (And, of course, he admits, vice versa.)

Fans of the 2003 movie with Will Ferrell as Buddy will certainly get what they came for, he says.

"If it's your favorite Christmas movie, then you're coming to see your favorite Christmas movie with music. All of your favorite stuff is there -- all of the great lines. And it's got this great score -- Big Band, jazzy, lots of horns, swing sound. It's so much fun. I'll go out and do a scene and then hang out in the wings, and listen.

"I love the music, it's the first thing that drew me to this. I was coming to audition and had no idea, I'd never heard of it, and I heard the soundtrack and I was sold.

"In the beginning of Act II, there's a big scene that takes place in a Chinese restaurant with all the out-of-work Santa temps; they're all dressed in Santa outfits. And they do this wonderful number, reminiscent of 'Hey, Big Spender' [from Sweet Charity], called 'Nobody Cares About Santa Claus.' That's the feel of the show -- old Broadway, Big Band sound."

Clement says he has to give props to the ensemble, "because when I was their age, I couldn't begin to do what they do. Carol Burnett used to have an expression: 'I'm not talented enough to be in the chorus.' So true."

It's the curse of the character actor, "to get all the laughs -- 'Oh, darn' -- and then get out of the way of the singers and dancers."

And, of course, he has to give plenty of scope to Buddy, whom Clement describes as "a force of nature."

"Sam is just wonderful to work with," he adds. "Every year it's been a different Buddy, and every year it's a different take on Buddy -- the director isn't trying to re-create Will Ferrell's performance, and so the actors are given some leeway to come up with this guy. It's always interesting to see what his take is going to be."

Weekend on 12/01/2016

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