The last ‘A Very Die Hard Christmas’: A seasonal theater tradition comes to an end
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On Dec. 21, Bryant Lake Bowl & Theater in Minneapolis will host the 113th and final performance of “A Very Die Hard Christmas.” The rowdy musical farce reenactment of the 1988 action film starring Bruce Willis was partly inspired by the hotly debated question: Is “Die Hard” a Christmas movie?
Bruce Willis has weighed in to say no while screenwriter Steven E. de Souza and director John McTiernan say yes. Regardless, many have found the local rendition to be a holiday tradition. According to co-creator Josh Carson, who has also played the role of tank-topped and blood-soaked protagonist John McClane every year, this season sold out in 12 minutes.
“We jokingly said, ‘Let’s make this a new holiday tradition in the Twin Cities,’ and it came true,” Carson says. “If you believe in what you’re doing, you’re gonna find the audience that's gonna be there for it.”
Carson says it didn’t start out that way.
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He co-created the show with Andy Rocco Kraft, Brad Erickson and Michael Mayket when it started out as a sketch for Brave New Workshop around 2002. Carson says the first shows in 2012 sold around five tickets. In the last few years, performances have sold out consistently. Other groups have picked it up, too, performing it at Hollywood Fringe Festival.
The show is ending because the cast wanted it to go out on a high note.
“I always kind of said I don’t ever want to just have the show disappear,” Carson says. “We’ve been very fortunate over the years as the shows kind of went through changes and evolved that it’s never become stale, and it’s never really felt like we're clocking in, clocking out. You want to kind of avoid that with comedy.”
Carson says the cast has also aged out of the physically taxing performance. Many cast members have family members now and want to spend the holiday season with them.
“We were all kind of young kids in our 30s when 10 o’clock was the start of the night,” Carson recalls of the beginning. “The other night [the audience] started chanting, ‘Four more years, four more years!’ A lot of the popping you hear in the show isn’t the gun sound effects, it’s my knees.”
Carson says there are many good and odd memories, such as the cast pizza parties and hanging out with the Bryant Lake Bowl staff. Or how the venue’s back parking lot often looks like a crime scene after the cast douses Carson with fake blood. One 2014 memory stands out.
“I mean, I proposed to my wife as John McClane all covered in blood at the end of one of the shows,” Carson says. “I think she just said, ‘You’re disgusting,’ because I was covered in blood. Then I kissed her, and then she got covered in blood.”
He adds, “The crowd went nuts.”
