"Painting with Lights to Music"

Stage Management Fellow Kacie Pimentel, Crew Chief Bryan Perez, Stage Manager Liz Campbell, and Assistant Stage Manager Anna Baranski in 2022. Photo courtesy of Liz Campbell.

Liz Campbell is no stranger to the Alliance Theatre’s production of A Christmas Carol. She has been involved with the production in various roles backstage since 2005, spanning the three different versions of Carol that have been produced in that time.  

“I started at the Alliance as a Stage Management apprentice,” Campbell says, “and I did A Christmas Carol for the first time that same year. I did a year as run crew, took two years off, then came back as the assistant stage manager in 2009 and filled that role until 2012. I took over [stage managing] the show in 2013 when Pat [Flora] retired.” 

Campbell has worked on all three versions of this story that the Alliance Theatre has produced – the previous David H. Bell adaptation that ran on the Alliance Stage (later The Coca-Cola Stage) for thirty years, the current David H. Bell adaptation that premiered on The Coca-Cola Stage in 2021 and continues its run today, and the live radio play adaptation that performed in a parking lot in Atlanta’s Summerhill community in 2020.  

“I’ve been with the show so long, I sometimes feel like the Ghost of Christmas Carols Past,” Campbell says.  

Her favorite backstage tradition is Potluck Day, the day when the cast and team backstage gather for a few hours together to share food and exchange Secret Santa gifts. 

“It’s the culmination of all the values of the season –” says Campbell – “gift giving, sharing a meal, joy, laughter, and communion.”  

Left to Right: Actor Adrienne Ocfemia and Young Performer Supervisor Kate Walsh. Photo courtesy of Liz Campbell. Actor Emberlynn Wood. Photo courtesy of Liz Campbell. Actor Clare Latham. Photo courtesy of Liz Campbell.

When asked why she pursued stage managing as a career, Campbell says, “I love stage managing because it combines the skills and talents that I was lucky enough to be born with, as well as the passions I have (and an overwhelming desire to organize things). Calling a show feels like painting with lights to music; it brings me a joy I can’t describe.”  

In addition to many – many – Alliance Theatre productions, Campbell has offered her talents as a stage manager to many theaters and organizations outside of the Alliance, such as The Shining and RENT at The Atlanta Opera; In the Continuum at Synchronicity Theatre; Book of Will and It’s a Wonderful Life at Theatrical Outfit; and The Drowsy Chaperone, Camelot, The World Goes Round, Million Dollar Quartet, Monty Python’s Spamalot, and Ragtime at the Atlanta Lyric Theatre. She has also been the stage manager for the Georgia High School Musical Theatre Awards (or the Shuler Awards) for almost a decade.  

However, she says that her career highlight has been watching her daughter grow up “seeing, responding to, and enjoying” the shows she’s worked on.  

Her favorite moment in the Alliance’s current production of Carol is when Christmas Present sings “O, Holy Night” at the beginning of Act II. “It stirs my heart and soul so much,” she says, “that sometimes I forget for a moment I’m working and have cues to call!”  

Campbell says she keeps coming back to Carol “because I love it. I can’t imagine my holiday season without A Christmas Carol.”  

And we can’t imagine A Christmas Carol without her. 

A Christmas Carol will run on the Coca-Cola Stage November 9 through December 24, 2024 – learn more.