A Christmas Carol: The Radio Play

Journey back to 1948, as a handful of radio actors (and one harried sound effects artist) retell the story of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol before your very ears!  Garage Theatre Group presents this unusual twist on a holiday classic with A Christmas Carol: The Radio Play at the Becton Theatre, 960 River Road  in Teaneck on Sunday, December 18 at 3 pm.

     Can the Spirits reform that greedy miser Ebenezer Scrooge before it’s too late?  Will Tiny Tim survive to see another Christmas?  Can ten actors create a cast of dozens without getting hopelessly lost?  Find out in this musical retelling of the Dickens novel.  Garage’s holiday gift: admission to the staged reading is by donation only!

       “It’s been a tough year for everybody, and we just wanted to give a little holiday gift to our audience and the community,” says Michael Bias, artistic director of the Garage Theatre.  “We’re presenting a fun production that literally anybody can afford to come see.”

      “A Christmas Carol is one of the famous Christmas stories of all,” says Bias. “You could say that the modern view of Christmas started with Dickens’ vision of home, family and the Meaning of Christmas.”   The new script, firmly grounded in the Dickens original, features music and humor for the whole family.

      The idea of a staged radio play is that the audience is transported back 60 years to a production of a radio show.  In this case, the Lux Radio Theatre is presenting a version of A Christmas Carol complete with announcer, Hollywood starlets, and even soap commercials.

     “The production combines live theatre and radio,” says director Jerry Lazar, who has produced and directed staged radio shows including It’s a Wonderful Life, Shop Around the Corner and War of the Worlds.  “A Christmas Carol is live theater with live music.  On the other hand, the actors, working in front of microphones, use only their voices to change characters—often with only a line or two to make the switch.  Then, of course, there’s the sound effects man: the audience gets to see him use coconuts to make hoof beats, clip boards for gun shots, and so forth. That’s always great fun, especially for kids.”