Temecula Valley Players bring 'Scrooge' back to Temecula

By: CHARLES HAND - For The Californian | Wednesday, November 22, 2006 11:30 AM PST ∞

It is getting more difficult for Paul Kehler to take parts in community theater, but he had to do "Scrooge."

"I really, really like the story," Kehler said of his lead role in the Temecula Valley Players production opening Dec. 1 at the Old Town Temecula Community Theater.

Kehler likes the musical version of Charles Dickens' Christmas classic "A Christmas Carol" because, he believes, the lessons taught by the story are even more powerfully conveyed when they are teamed up with music.

"It is a great story and has great lessons to teach," Kehler said. "It has moral value."

Kehler teamed up with Joe Arreola to open a studio in February and that has taken up the bulk of his time for almost a year. At their Triple Threat Academy ---- along with a couple of adjunct instructors ---- teach voice, acting, musical theater, and dance. Kehler is the voice teacher.

"I love to sing," he said, and has been doing it since he was young.

He came to the stage during his sophomore year in high school when an injury put him out of sports for a while. During that time, he took some acting and decided he liked it.

"I was attracted to becoming another person on stage. It was an opportunity to affect people. That is also the challenge."

At San Diego State University, he took more acting classes and more roles and found that the attraction did not wane. As much fun as he had acting, though, Kehler found the addition of music to a script took a script to another level and he turned to musical theater.

Drama can carry viewers high and low and high again, but teaming up a good play with music makes a great play, he said.

"Scrooge" makes use of the music's emotional content to express in ways words alone cannot Scrooge's journey and his reactions to the scenes the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future show him.

Musical styles in the play range from the high-energy and lyric-free dance at the party thrown by Fezziwig or the games at Scrooge's nephew's Christmas party to the ballads that express Scrooge's feelings as he witnesses some of the scenes from his past and future.

The dialogue is drawn almost entirely from the book, which Dickens wrote in the latter part of the 19th century.

Kehler's last foray beyond the walls of the studio was in another Temecula Valley Players production, "Jekyll and Hyde," in which he played the dual title characters.

Leslie Vecchio, director of both "Jekyll and Hyde" and "Scrooge," said the latest production has been a pleasant change from past efforts.

"When the producer says she'll produce, she does," Vecchio said.

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