Gingerbread Theaters for a Virtual Winter (Featuring an interview with Dr. E. Christin Essin)

written by Miranda Allegar and Katharine Matthias - December 24, 2020

Theater Professor at Vanderbilt University Dr. E. Christin Essin celebrates the holidays by building a theater every year. However, her prosceniums are made out of gingerbread and audiences out of gummy bears. In past years, she’s made a version of the Globe Theater, a stage with paper figurines dancing a scene from The Nutcracker, and an Art Deco proscenium featuring gummy bear performers.

This year, Dr. Essin decided to continue the tradition even though she could not host her annual party where she would normally make her gingerbread theaters. “I've spent the whole semester at home teaching online, and a cookie party is not in the cards this year,” Essin says, “But somehow it seemed important to make one anyway.”

Dr. Essin’s 2020 theater (see below) features a tea candle on an empty stage. The tea candle symbolizes a ghost light, reflecting many theaters and their ghost lights right now. Dr. Essin says, “When I posted the photograph on social media, I was really pleased at the response, especially from a number of the theatre technicians I interviewed for my upcoming book on backstage labor. With theaters shut down and shops lacking new projects, so many people in our industry have had such a rough year. So it was nice to make them smile. One of the Broadway electricians I feature in the book posted the photograph of the gingerbread theatre on the Broadway Shutdown Facebook group, so hopefully that made some more people smile.”

*Image: Dr. Essin’s 2020 gingerbread stage, ghostlight lit*

Dr. Essin’s annual tradition provides a little extra joy this year along with recently passed stimulus bills to attempt to keep such spaces afloat. Her gingerbread theaters serve a dual purpose of bringing theater and Christmas into her home while also keeping the spirit and memory of the stages affected by the pandemic alive. Dr. Essin speaks about how her tradition began, how it has evolved as a community-building practice and cherished creative process, and how is has changed amid a pandemic.

ESSIN: “When I taught at the University of Arizona, I started hosting a holiday cookie decorating party for theatre students during their finals period. The gingerbread theatre emerged as a fun thing to place on the table to inspire creativity. I kept making the theatre when I moved to Vanderbilt, and I try to finish it before the students here host their holiday party. For me, it's something fun and creative to do that helps me through the stress of the end of the semester before I finish grading. It's also become something fun to post on social media each year and reconnect with old friends over comments.

*Image: Dr. Essin’s first gingerbread theater, circa 2009*

ESSIN: Making gingerbread theatres has been more connected to my teaching than research. When I was an undergraduate student at Wake Forest University, one of our professors always had a holiday party at his home, and it created such a great memory for me that I wanted to do the same for my students. Thus, the beginning of the cookie decorating party.

I also like students to see what can happen with the skills they are learning in design and technology courses. I tell anyone who asks that this is one project where I know I will pull out my scale ruler that I learned to use as an undergraduate student. Even though I teach theatre history now, students can see that I'm still passionate about theatre by engaging in creative projects like a cookie theatre. What we do is complicated, difficult, and time consuming, but always imaginative.

ESSIN: I didn't pre-plan the design this year. Most years, I plan ahead and have lots of grand plans. Gummy bear Rockettes on a kickline, or as the groundlings at the Globe. One year, I decided I would try to make fruit leather and fashion it into an Austrian curtain. When that failed, I tried gummy ribbons. Then that failed, I gave up on curtains. Throughout the year, I always have my eye out for fun candies or edible sprinkles when I'm shopping, so I have quite the collection.

*Image: A theater replete with gummy bear kickline, circa 2010*

ESSIN: So, since I've been trying to minimize my trips to the store (Nashville is a COVID hotspot right now because the TN governor is ridiculous and Nashville thrives on tourism dollars), I just used what I had on hand. I used my basic proscenium pattern for a smaller theatre (one that scales better for gummy bears, even though I didn't have any on hand), and pulled out the multi-colored nonpareils. Bright and festive without being too gaudy. I've found that a snowy backdrop works best with a bright proscenium design, so I made a simple blue sky and decorated tree. Since a tea light was going to be center stage for the ghost light, I used pearl chocolates for the footlights.

It's usually a project I do on my own (I've been very happily single for many years), but this year my boyfriend was around to smile and make comments. It was definitely nice to have this as a project to structure my day and fill some hours; normally, I'm taking time out from grading to de-stress. This year I was de-stressing about A LOT more.

The biggest difference is that I only shared the theatre on social media for my friends; at one point, I thought "it doesn't even need to be edible at this point, it's just going to be a picture." But there's something about living up to standards, so I still made the same royal icing for constructing and buttercream (flavored with Grand Marnier) for the decorating.

I begin with a pattern; I made my first with the help of my friend Clare Rowe, a scenic designer at the U of Arizona. But I've made the rest myself by pulling out the scale ruler and measuring out the proscenium, then side, backwalls, and floor. After years of experimenting, I now know to roll out the gingerbread dough on a silicone baking mat, cutting the pattern with a sharp knife, pulling away the excess, and placing it directly into the oven without having to pull up the dough and place it on a baking sheet (it loses its shape quickly, and you want to be able to match corners).

One detail I like that only some people notice is using a knife to line the floor, so it looks like wood planks.

I decorate the backdrop and proscenium before building because it's easier to apply the frosting in clean, straight lines. Make gravity your friend, not your enemy.

After a number of proscenium mishaps (it's the most fragile piece) I now know to first set the back and side walls to the floor, and wait until the structure is solid before leaning the proscenium against it.

Always have some bourbon on hand to celebrate the completion.”

*Image: Process photo from constructing the Globe*

*Image: Nutcracker-themed stage from 2016*

The holiday season of 2020 has brought theater to the gingerbread form in more than one instance, however. In addition to Dr. Essin’s theaters, the year brought a video of gingerbread roadies constructing an event in a performance venue, created in painstaking stop-motion and posted on the Creative Lumens YouTube and Vimeo channels, where it has amassed over 20,000 views as of December 24th, 2020. The video was created to bring awareness to the hashtag, #WeMakeEvents, centered on seeking support for the live performance industry and its workers during the pandemic.

The gingerbread form combines the nostalgia and festivity of the holiday season with the hope for the theater industry in a dark and painful time for much of the workers and creators in the business. The “Gingerbread Roadies” video centers these workers, much as Dr. Essin’s theaters highlight the spaces. Both, then, illuminate the parts of the industry uncaptured by the digital pivot that dominated theater in 2020, much as the ghost light in Dr. Essin’s 2020 gingerbread stage sets out to remind all who see it that we will, one day, return to these spaces.

all photos courtesy of Dr. Essin

Learn more about Dr. Essin

A GINGERBREAD THEATRE KEEPS THE LIGHTS ON

For the Songbirds: Masks and Performance for Singers and Musicians