Ebenezer Scrooge’s gravely, grumpy voice echoed through the audience during the Sedona Red Rock Jr./Sr. High School’s preview showing of its The Christmas Carol production at Community Library Sedona on Thursday, Nov. 20.

The full show, which will be about an hour and a half long, will debut on Thursday and Friday, Dec. 4 and 5, at 6 p.m. in the Sedona Performing Arts Center.

Doors open half hour before the show.

Junior Fernando Quisumbing said it was fun trying to find the right way to embody the character of Scrooge.

“There’s a Star Trek show, ‘Deep Space Nine’, and there’s this Klingon general, Martok, and [it sounds] something a little like Dustin Hoffman’s Hook from ‘Hook’, but he talks like this,” Quisumbing said, gesturing to the base of his throat. “It’s back from here and he draws everything out. So, I took the vernacular and … mannerisms.”

After having the idea, Quisumbing said he talked to his dad, Community Library Sedona’s Scheduling Coordinator Jan Marc Quisumbing, about it over dinner. When he tried the impression for the first time, his dad was just as surprised as he was when the voice came out near perfectly.

“He was like ‘OK’,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Getting it consistent wasn’t too bad.”

Many of the auditions happened over the summer.

The cast had its first read through in August and has been working to put the production together throughout the semester.

The preview show on Thursday was one scene of Scrooge telling off his employee, Bob Cratchit, played by senior Logan Jankowski, for asking for one day a year off — Christmas Day. An intro choir of five sang “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” wearing cabbie hats, vests and scarves and a narrator: Jan Marc Quisumbing, who will be narrating the shows as well.

Thursday was the cast’s first run-through with costumes. New theater teacher Cae Collmar said it brought up her spirits.

“Obviously, there’s a few growing pains; we’re kind of trying to resurrect the department, but I feel like we just keep moving forward and taking little baby steps,” Collmar said. “Everybody is so dedicated and working so hard. After the performance today, I’m feeling like ‘OK, everything’s going to be OK.’”

Collmar said she has been a bit worried this year about how the shows will turn out.

“I’m in a new theater to me,” she said, “Everything’s [new], the tech and the lights and the sound and I’m still getting to know the space and students.”

Otherwise, things have been going smoothly, Collmar said. The costumes and set are coming together nicely.

“We are still looking for a giant barrel, like a wine barrel or a pickle barrel or something,” Collmar announced to the audience after the performance finished. “We’d be happy to borrow it and return it in the same condition, if anyone knows of anything like that.”

Most of the set’s creation was assisted by the stage craft class Collmar teaches.

“I teach theater arts high school and theater arts middle school; That’s these kids,” she said. “Also teach a stage craft class and then an intro to theater for both of those levels. So there’s the advanced level for both high school and middle school, there’s the intro level that you don’t have to audition for.”

The students have a variety of theater experience, but none particularly recent or anything this large.

Quisumbing did a bit of acting in his class while he was at Sedona Charter School and plays Dungeons & Dragons, which he said helps him roleplay and act.

“There was an open call for auditions, and I would go down just to broaden my horizon,” Jankowski said about starting his theater career.

“I’ve done plays in the past,” said senior Reymond Papas-Collins, who plays Fred, Dick Wilkins and the Undertaker. “I’ve always been interested in that. I just haven’t had an outlet for that in a while.”

Overall, the cast said they had fun learning to portray their characters and improve their acting, but because it’s such a new program, there have been some difficulties.

“I think it’s a little difficult because we don’t have a large stage crew, so we’re having to do a lot of that,” Papas-Collins said.

The most challenging thing, though, is when someone has a new idea they want to incorporate into the show.

“So when we try those out, and we’re like, ‘oh, this does look good,’ we kind of have to rearrange everything.

Like, I think my bedroom has gone three or four different iterations,” Quisumbing said.

General admission tickets are $15 for each showing and are available through the booster club’s website, scorpionboosterclub.com.