The Battle of Life

I was browsing some playbills in the online collection of the British Library, when I came across an interesting poster advertising a stage adaptation of the Charles Dickens novella The Battle of Life and the melodrama The Black Doctor, a play later made famous by Ira Aldridge.

It's been the season for Dickens, who followed up A Christmas Carol in 1843 with a new Christmas book, The Chimes, the following year. After The Chimes was likewise a bestseller, Dickens wrote The Cricket on the Hearth to be sold at Christmastime in 1845 and The Battle of Life in 1846.

A Christmas Carol is divided not into chapters but five staves, like the staves of a poem or song. The Chimes is broken up into four quarters, like the quarters of an hour, and The Cricket on the Hearth has three chirps. Perhaps Dickens had grown weary of this humorous conceit, as The Battle of Life is simply divided into three parts.

Those three parts do correspond well to the three acts of a play, which might have made the piece ripe for adaptation to the stage. The playbill from the Theatre Royal in Bath announces the closing of both shows on January 7, 1847, which means the adaptation must have been written soon after Dickens had published the book the previous month.

Dickens purposely set The Battle of Life about a hundred years in the past. As with Robert Browning's play A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, which Dickens had championed, the 18th-century setting was necessary to portray certain values that had already become obsolete by the Victorian era. Rather than being set in the city, like many of Dickens's novels, the story takes place in the countryside, in a town near a famous battle site.

After setting up the action, the story moves forward three years. It is this second part that takes place around Christmastime, and in fact the main event of the narrative occurs during a Christmas ball, when the beautiful Marion mysteriously disappears. She does not return until the third part, which occurs another six years later. Though The Battle of Life is by no means Dickens's most famous work, I can see why it would be tempting to adapt it for the stage, since the three parts correspond so well to the three-act structure preferred in many plays of the period.

The Black Doctor, however, was originally divided into seven acts when it was written in French by Auguste Anicét-Bourgeois and Philippe François Pinel Dumanoir under the title Le Docteur Noir. It was later turned into a four-act play translated by John Vilon Bridgeman and further adapted by Thomas Hailes Lacy. It is this version that seems to have been advertised on the playbill, rather than the adaptation by Thomas Archer that Aldridge later appeared in and made famous.

I would have liked to have seen that evening of plays produced in Bath! Having just read The Battle of Life and having a long-standing interest in The Black Doctor, I would be intrigued to see how the company handled both works.

The Holidays Begin

I'm pleased to announce that my short play Burns Night has passed into the semifinalist round of the Holiday Playwright Contest held by Kinsman Quarterly.

The play premiered in 2019 at the Secret Theatre in Queens, which is now one of many companies doing productions of A Christmas Carol throughout the five boroughs of New York and beyond.

While I don't know that I'll be able to get out to see that production before it closes on December 22nd, I plan on going to see another production closer to home. On December 3rd and 4th, Sean Coffey will be performing his one-person adaptation of Charles Dickens's story at the historic Van Cortlandt House Museum in the Bronx.

John Kevin Jones will be performing his own one-person version of the tale in Manhattan at the Merchant’s House Museum in Manhattan through December 29th. If you're in the mood for a larger production, head over to Staten Island, where Sundog Theatre is producing a large-cast musical version of the tale on December 7th, adapted by Cash Tilton, with original songs by Susan Mondzak.

Most exciting to me, though, is a puppet version of A Christmas Carol performed by Drama of Works on December 19th at Rubulad in Brooklyn. Drama of Works founder Gretchen Van Lente is sponsoring a “XMAS CAROL” puppet slam, breaking up Dickens’s story into six parts, each performed by a different puppetry troupe. Gretchen designed the puppets for my own adaptation of the story in 2007, so I'm expecting great things.

Across the river, the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey is producing a stage version of A Christmas Carol in Madison, adapted by Neil Bartlett, which plays until December 29th. Yes, that's a lot of Carols! It so happens, I am regarded as enough of an expert on these things that I will be co-hosting the last episode of the Rosenbach Library's "Monsters and Ghosts" online program on December 16th, discussing the legacy of a Dickensian Christmas.

So however you celebrate this month, I wish you a very merry holiday season!

Coming Soon!

Tomorrow night, November 2nd, Bara Swain's The Boob Tube Plays opens at The Tank, featuring a short play that I'm directing, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.

The Boob Tube Plays consists of five short works, all by Swain, all inspired in one way or another by television. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt features Megan Greener as a woman who's watched way too much Law & Order: SVU, and Nick Walther as her terrified husband-to-be.

If you miss the show on Saturday, you'll have two more chances to see it: on Thursday, November 7th and on Friday, November 8th. All shows are at 7:00pm and tickets are $22. The evening is produced by American Renaissance Theater Company (ARTC) and includes work by directors Kim T. Sharp and Vincent Scott, in addition to one play directed by Swain herself.

Next month, we will be entering the season of A Christmas Carol, and I'll be appearing on a virtual program hosted by the Rosenbach Library, speaking about the legacy of Charles Dickens's beloved novella. There have been countless stage adaptations of the classic, including my own, which was produced by the Epiphany Theater Company in New York and Passage Theatre Company in New Jersey.

And if you happen to be in Brazil in December, the short film The Rainbow, for which I wrote the screenplay, has been chosen as an official selection for FINTCH - Festival Internacional de Cinema de Humor in Rio de Janeiro. More information on that coming soon!

Advent of the Carol

Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent, which means the season of A Christmas Carol is upon us yet again.

For the past couple of years, Passage Theatre Company in Trenton has performed my adaptation of the classic Charles Dickens story. This year, they are instead having a holiday singalong, but if you want to get your Carol on, you can see a costumed reading this Wednesday at the Penn Club.

The Friends of Dickens New York is sponsoring the reading, which features Warren Wyss as Scrooge. Warren previously acted with Phylicia Rashad in The Public Theater's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Other readers include Lynn Manuell, Kitty Loving, and myself. Yes, I adapted the script, and will also be performing.

Celebrations commence at a 6:00 reception. Around 6:15, we'll begin caroling, and the reading itself will be at 6:30. The event is for Penn Club members and their guests, but Su Quinn, who is a member of the club as well as a Friend of Dickens, says anyone interested can contact her at: suyapaquinn@me.com

Tickets for non-members are $25 and include complimentary drinks. If you're interested, please come!

The Other Writers

By law, dramatists are forbidden from unionizing. The PRO Act would make things better for dramatists, but still not allow us to form a union.

Writers for television and film are treated differently. They have union, and the Writers Guild of America, both East and West, is currently on strike, largely over issues related to streaming content.

When streaming services began, writers accepted very little for their work, since nobody knew if online delivery of video content was going to be feasible in the long run anyway. The WGA agreed to allow content providers to experiment, which paid off with companies like Netflix making huge profits. The writers? Not so much.

According to the WGA, "The studios have taken advantage of the transition to streaming to underpay entertainment industry workers, including writers in every area of work." This complaint has been echoed by actors, who receive far less money in residuals when their work is streamed versus when it airs on television or is released on DVD.

These issues could potentially effect playwrights as well, since COVID-19 shut down so many live performances and forced theatres to produce plays online. My own play Kew Gardens was supposed to be performed live last year by Actors' Theatre in Santa Cruz, but ended up being streamed instead. The push for streaming theatre isn't necessarily a bad thing, and can improve access, as when Passage Theatre in Trenton made my adaptation of A Christmas Carol available for people to stream.

The problem is that corporate interests are insisting on ever greater profits at the expense of the people who actually create entertainment, whether in the form of plays, movies, television shows, or features and series created specifically for viewing over streaming services. The WGA is standing up because they have to do so. The current system simply is not sustainable.

While in Midtown today, I came across a group of picketers on Fifth Avenue. Writers and actors stood together, protesting the intransigence of studios who refuse to alter agreements created when streaming was in its infancy.

As a dramatist, I'm not a member of a writers union (and legally can't be as a playwright). However, I support the WGA in their fight. If the writers lose this one, we will all lose.

Passage Theatre Company needs you!

For more than thirty years, Passage Theatre Company has served the greater Trenton area with high-quality productions of new and established plays. Now, the company needs your help.

An unexpected cash flow crisis has forced the theatre to reach out for donations so they can continue to operate. They are a vital part of performing arts in the region, so I hope you'll consider lending a hand.

For the past two years, Passage has produced my adaptation of Charles Dickens's classic novella A Christmas Carol. Peter Bisgaier played Scrooge both times, and was wonderful in the role. It would be great to have the production back again this December, but that can't happen if the theatre is forced to close its doors.

Located at the historic Mill Hill Playhouse, originally built as a Gothic-revival church in 1873, Passage has been serving the city of Trenton and its surrounding area since 1985. Artistic Director C. Ryanne Domingues and Managing Director Brishen Miller bring a piece of theatrical magic to Trenton, and since the theatre is located within walking distance from the New Jersey Transit train station in the capital, it's actually quite accessible from other places as well.

If you're able to, I hope you'll consider lending them your support.

Animal Magnetism

Elizabeth Inchbald made her playwriting debut with The Mogul Tale in 1784, but her 1788 play Animal Magnetism had a longer-lasting influence on the stage.

There have been multiple stagings of the play in recent years, including one done last year at St. Hugh's College, Oxford and now available to watch on YouTube. I got to see a different staging tonight, which was performed by the Red Bull Theater Company at the Players Club and streamed online.

José Zayas, who directed my adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol in Saratoga Springs directed the staged reading for Red Bull, so I knew it would be well done. I also knew it would feature Carson Elrod, who has shone brilliantly in past Red Bull productions, including The Alchemist.

Like The Mogul Tale, Inchbald's Animal Magnetism is a farce that draws inspiration from the science of the late-eighteenth century. In The Mogul Tale, Inchbald portrays aeronauts who ascend in a balloon in England and (apparently after getting caught in a jet stream) come down in India. Her later farce deals instead with mesmerism, which was called at the time animal magnetism.

Today, we equate mesmerism with hypnosis, but Franz Mesmer—who originated the practice—believed he was manipulating an invisible fluid that penetrates all organisms. In Inchbald's play, the quack Doctor Mystery describes it this way:

This fluid is like a river, that—that—runs—that—goes—that—gently glides—so—so—so—while there is nothing to stop it.—But if it en|counters a mound or any other impediment—boo—boo—boo—it bursts forth—it overflows the country round—throws down villages, hamlets, houses, trees, cows and lambs; but remove obstacles which obstruct its course, and it begins again, softly and sweetly to flow—thus—thus—thus—the fields are again adorned, and every thing goes on, as well as it can go on.

Doctor Mystery, however, is actually La Fleur, the valet of a marquis who loves the play's heroine. He performs fake deeds of mesmerism in order to foil the heroine's guardian. Needless to say, the marquis and the heroine end up together, and La Fleur gains the affections of her maid.

Much of the play's humor comes from the two women pretending to be under the influence of mesmerism. Dickens, who practiced mesmerism himself, found the play hysterical, and it was frequently performed alongside his friend Wilkie Collins's play The Frozen Deep.

Animal Magetism is based on a French play, Le Médecin Malgré tout le monde by Antoine-Jean Bourlin (Dumaniant). It is not Inchbald's only adaptation, though. Perhaps her most famous play, Lovers' Vows, was adapted from a melodrama by August von Kotzebue.

Best Plays of 2022

As the end of the year approaches, I am once again making my list of the best productions I saw in New York City that opened this year.

If I were being just, I would include My Fellow Americans due to the amazing performance of Rebecca Ana Peña, but as the play's author, I'm probably a bit too close to it, so I'm disqualifying it.

Also disqualified is the virtual production of Kew Gardens as well as the live and virtual versions of A Christmas Carol at Passage Theatre Company. They weren't in New York City, anyway, nor were the productions of King Lear and Only Fools and Horses I saw in London.

Last year was rather lackluster in New York, though a couple good shows rose to the top of my list, including The Alchemist and The Streets of New York. It seems 2022 wasn't quite the year that theatre in this city got back into full swing, but at least there were a lot more good shows opening than there were in 2021.

So without further ado, here is my top-ten list in reverse order:

10. Cymbeline - New York Classical Theatre's outdoor production of Cymbeline was a blast, in large part due to Aziza Gharib, who played the show's heroine, Imogine.

9. Richard II - Another enjoyable outdoor production of Shakespeare was Hudson Classical Theater Company's Richard II at the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Riverside Park. Nathan Mattingly played the title role.

8. Made By God - Ciara Ni Chuirc's new play that opened at Irish Rep at the beginning of this year has stayed with me. This meditation on the changing law regarding abortion in Ireland doesn't run away from tough issues of faith and society's shared responsibility for all of its members.

7. As You Like It - Generally, this is one of my least favorite Shakespeare plays, but Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery's musical adaptation was a delight this summer in Central Park. The songs perfectly captured the goofy, conflicted nature of the play's characters. I'd like to see regional theatres pick this one up for the future.

6. Ohio State Murders - Adrienne Kennedy finally made her Broadway debut this year, with help from the star power of Audra McDonald. Playing Suzanne Alexander, a fictionalized version of the playwright herself, McDonald takes us on a harrowing journey where small things take on terrifying aspects by pointing toward much darker ends. (Still playing!)

5. Candida - Gingold Theatrical Group's magnificent production of one of Bernard Shaw's most delightful comedies did not disappoint. Avanthika Srinivasan starred in the title role, while R.J. Foster and Avery Whitted played the two very different men who are in love with her. The production also featured the best set I saw in New York all year, wonderfully crafted by Lindsay Genevieve Fuori.

4. A Touch of the Poet - Irish Rep scored another hit with their revival of Eugene O'Neill's powerful exploration of one moment in American history. Robert Cuccioli was brilliant as Con Melody, but the real discovery was Belle Aykroyd, who played Con's daughter Sara. I'll have a full analysis of the production coming out next year in The Eugene O'Neill Review. The author never saw the play performed in his lifetime, but I think he would have appreciated this staging of it.

3. Downstate - In the past, I've not been a fan of the work of Bruce Norris, but Downstate, still playing through January 7th at Playwrights Horizons, deserves to be seen. The cast, including Glenn Davis, K. Todd Freeman, and Francis Guinan as convicted sex offenders living together in a group home in downstate Illinois while overseen by a parole officer (portrayed brilliantly by Susanna Guzman), is absolutely excellent. Even more important, though, is the way Norris interrogates a culture of victimhood and portrays what it might look like for people to truly take responsibility for their actions.

2. Leopoldstadt - Tom Stoppard's latest play is more conventional than most of his work, but it packs an emotional wallop, especially in these times of rising ethnic nationalism. I spoke about the production on CUNY TV, sharing my long-time love of Stoppard's plays. Though the storytelling is mostly straightforward, its enormous cast of characters would be impossible to follow were it not for the deft direction of Patrick Marber, who makes sure we understand the steady march of time through the most terrifying decades of the 20th century. Tickets are currently on sale until the beginning of July, so if you haven't seen it yet, go.

1. Paradise Square - My top choice will no doubt be controversial, but in spite of its many problems, Larry Kirwan's reimagining of Five Points during the infamous Civil War draft riots captured what contemporary theatre can be if it has the courage to try. Choreographer Bill T. Jones did an exceptional job, and Joaquina Kalukango brought down the house singing the brilliant number "Let It Burn." The music, which is inspired by the work of Stephen Foster, deserves the cast recording we've been promised, but alas, the financial mismanagement of producers could mean this show never again sees the light of day. That would be a shame, as it deserves a much larger audience than it received during its abbreviated run on Broadway.

Here's to an even better year in 2023!

A Streaming Carol

If you missed my adaptation of A Christmas Carol at Passage Theatre Company in Trenton, you can still watch the show streaming until December 25th.

Aaron Oster directed this innovative production that stars Peter Bisgaier as Ebenezer Scrooge and Richard Bradford as Charles Dickens, who then magically transforms into all of the other characters in the story.

Click here to find out more about the show and to purchase tickets to stream a recording of the performance over the Internet. For $15, you can stream the production into the comfort of your own home anytime you like between now and Christmas.

Originally, the streaming service was only going to be available until December 20th, but the theatre has expanded it until the 25th, which certainly makes sense. I hope you check it out!

Photo Credit: Kara Jönsson

Carol Photos

My adaptation of A Christmas Carol is now closed at Passage Theatre Company, but I was sent a number of production photos of the show. All photos are credited to Kara Jönsson.

Here's Richard Bradford as Charles Dickens. He began the show as the author reading to us from his book, and then transformed into a multitude of new characters through the use of theatrical magic.

Peter Bisgaier played Ebenezer Scrooge. Here he is acting opposite Richard, who has become the Ghost of Jacob Marley. The wonderful costumes were designed by Anna Sorrentino.

In my adaptation, the Ghost of Christmas Past is supposed to be a puppet operated by Dickens. Here you can see the ghost puppet. Greg Pernicone Jr. designed the props for this production.

This production also used projections and had some spooky lighting designed by Andrew Cowles. You can get a sense of the lighting in this photo of Scrooge about to meet the Ghost of Christmas Present.

I think my favorite character Richard played was the old woman who strips Scrooge's bedchamber of everything of value. Director Aaron Oster had the character walk down into the audience, which was quite effective.

If you couldn't make it out for the show, I hope you at least enjoy the pictures. Farewell for now!

Year-End Sale!

Yesterday, my sister and I drove down to Trenton to see the closing performance of my adaptation of A Christmas Carol at Passage Theatre Company. It was great to see some fellow Dickens enthusiasts there, and the audience seemed to enjoy themselves.

Now there's a special holiday gift from Palgrave Macmillan, the publisher of my book Romantic Actors, Romantic Dramas. Until December 31st, you can get 70 percent off Palgrave hardcover books. That means my definitive study of British tragedy on the Regency stage is only $42.

Go to the Springer website to order the book online and use the code PALHC at check-out to receive your discount. At this price, it's considerably cheaper to order the hardcover book than to buy the volume as an ebook.

So if you want to read about Romanticism in both acting and English verse drama, here's your chance!

A Carol for Trenton

My two-person adaptation of Charles Dickens's classic A Christmas Carol is now up and running at Passage Theatre Company in Trenton.

Passage puts on plays at the Mill Hill Playhouse, originally the Messiah Church, built in 1873. The building was taken over in 1902 by the Lutheran Church of the Saviour, which merged with other congregations in 1967. In 1977, while the building was standing empty, it was gutted by a fire and was later converted to a theatre by the city. Today it provides a picturesque home for live drama, just a short walk from the historic Mercer Cemetery and the Trenton train station.

If you want to come out and see a show, there are three performances left: Saturday, December 10th at 3:00 pm, Saturday evening at 7:30 pm, and then a Sunday matinee on December 11th at 3:00 pm. I saw the opening last night, and I'll be back for the closing on Sunday. The show features two hard-working actors, Peter Bisgaier as Scrooge and Richard Bradford as everybody else! Costumes designed by Anna Sorrentino provide a mixture of the Victorian and the contemporary, and Greg Pernicone's set fills the stage with magic.

Aaron Oster directed the production. He's local to the Trenton area, but previously lived and worked in Minneapolis. He was the Associate Artistic Director for both EgoPo Classic Theater (2006) and Luna (2011-13). He received the 2004 CEC New Edge Residency Award for Theater and was previously a member of the Lincoln Center Theatre Directors' Lab.

I hope this production can fill people with holiday cheer!

KPOP

Last night I had the privilege of seeing KPOP, the new Broadway musical by Jason Kim, Helen Park, and Max Vernon.

KPOP began as an immersive musical co-produced by Ars Nova, Ma-Yi Theater, and Woodshed Collective, all of which have produced work I've loved in the past. With backing from a slew of producers, it was reimagined for Broadway, and is playing now at Circle in the Square, where the U-shaped seating and digital projections make it feel as immersive as can be expected on a traditional Broadway stage.

The Broadway production also gained star power in casting the Korean pop singer Luna in the leading role of MwE. I didn't get a chance to see Luna in the show, as the understudy Amy Keum went on last night. Keum normally plays the role of Ivy, so the swing actor Marina Kondo went on in that role, but both were brilliant, as can usually be expected of Broadway understudies. The entire cast, in fact, was amazing, and the play's first act was some of the most fun I've had in a theatre in a long time.

Not only is the music infectiously upbeat and joyful, but the set designed by Gabriel Hainer Evansohn continually shifted to reveal new surprises. (A technical glitch last night was one more surprise than the cast anticipated, but after a brief pause, the show was able to resume.) Best of all, the first act set up a very interesting conflict between the young superstar MwE and her mentor Ruby, played by Jully Lee making her Broadway debut. The conflict between MwE and Ruby brought out the dark side of celebrity and fame, asking us to question what it's all for anyway.

Unfortunately, the play loses the focus on the central conflict in the second act, opting instead to pit blame on a smarmy American documentary filmmaker named Harry, played by Aubie Merrylees. Harry makes a nice villain for us to love to hate, but ultimately he's not nearly as interesting a character as Ruby or MwE, and I wish the authors had spent more of the second act developing their conflict instead. When the tense scenes give way to a fun-filled celebration at the end, the audience was brought to their feet with enthusiasm, but I personally missed some of the explorations of character that had been hinted at earlier in the play.

None of this should detract from the magnificent achievements of KPOP, though, and people should definitely see it. Unfortunately, they'll have to act fast. The show is scheduled to close on December 11th!

Incidentally, that's also the closing performance of my production of A Christmas Carol at Passage Theatre Company in Trenton, so see them both before they disappear....

A CHRISTMAS CAROL Opens in a Week!

My two-person adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol was performed last year in Trenton, and now it's returning next weekend, opening one week from today.

Passage Theatre Company is producing the play December 9th through 11th. Aaron Oster is directing the production, which features Peter Bisgaier as Scrooge. Bisgaier played Scrooge last year as well, and was remarkable. He is producing artistic director of Pegasus Theatre Company in Bordentown, NJ, and has also appeared on stage at the Arden, InterAct, and Act II Playhouse, among many other companies. 

The other performer is Rich Bradford who plays Charles Dickens... as well as everyone else! Bradford is a founding company member with Theater In The X in Philadelphia. His award-winning one-man show To My Unborn Child: A Love Letter From Fred Hampton has been produced in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Trenton (at Passage Theatre, of course). He is assisted in his multiple roles by numerous props, costumes and puppets.

I hope you can come out to Trenton to see the show, which will be playing Friday night at 7:30 pm, Saturday at 3:00 pm and 7:30 pm, and Sunday at 3:00 pm. Get your tickets now!

If you aren't in the area, though, you'll be able to watch the play streaming from December 14th through 20th.

DGF Fellows Finalist

This month, I found out that my application to be a Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow made it to the final round of consideration, though ultimately, I did not get the fellowship.

The DGF Fellows program offers a year-long intensive for professional dramatists looking to develop their work and advance to the next levels of their careers. Past Fellows have included Deborah Zoe Laufer, Lloyd Suh, Rich Orloff, and Rajiv Joseph.

It's disappointing not to be chosen, though not surprising, as rejection is a part of being a dramatist. I do have a production coming up later this year, though, at Passage Theatre Company in Trenton, New Jersey. Last year, they performed my two-person adaptation of A Christmas Carol as a special one-night only event, and now they'll be bringing it back for a longer run December 9th through 11th.

Aaron Oster is slated to direct it this year, and tickets are already available. I hope you'll be able to make it!

Act III

I first moved into New York City in 2002. I had a great apartment in Hell's Kitchen. It was there that I wrote Foggy Bottom, which later premiered at the Abingdon Theatre Company, as well as my adaptation of A Christmas Carol done in Saratoga Springs.

Later, when I got married, my beloved didn't want to move into my beautiful Hell's Kitchen apartment. She needed luxury amenities, such as hot AND cold running water. (I always had at least one or the other.) That meant I had to move into her apartment in Harlem at the end of 2012.

Well, during that second act in New York City I wrote Meucci's Message, which premiered on Staten Island. I was also fortunate enough to have my adaptation of Moby-Dick done on Cape Cod and for Detroit Rep to produce my original play Capital. As the years went on, our friends who lived in Harlem moved away and it became time for a new change.

So now I'm beginning Act Three in New York, this time in a co-op apartment in the Bronx. While I can't tell what the future will hold, theatre does seem to be coming back as the pandemic recedes. My play Kew Gardens couldn't be performed live earlier this year, but you can watch it on YouTube.

Kew Gardens begins about an hour and 12 minutes into the video, but it's well worth watching to see Sienna Thorgusen play Kitty. Enjoy!

Adapting the Carol

Charles Dickens first published his delightful little book A Christmas Carol in December of 1843. The first edition sold out by Christmas Eve, and it was subsequently pirated. It's real fame, though, was to come not from the book itself, but through its numerous adaptations.

According to Michael Patrick Hearn's The Annotated Christmas Carol, at least eight different stage versions of the book appeared on London stages in early 1844. Three of them opened on the same day, February 5, 1844. Charles Zachary Barnett wrote a two-act adaptation of the story called A Christmas Carol: Or, the Miser's Warning! which opened at the Surrey Theatre, while Charles Webb adapted the story for the Strand Theatre, and a rival production penned by Edward Stirling opened at the Adelphi. 

Though February 5th was just two days before Dickens's birthday, the author received nothing in compensation, since Britain's copyright laws allowed fiction to be adapted for the stage without permission. Adapters could also change the story however they liked. Webb, for instance, had Scrooge re-unite with his long-lost sweetheart at the end of the play. Stirling's script was published in 1844, but it was Barnett's that became the most famous, being published by Dicks' Standard Plays and later by Samuel French.

The Stirling version was the only adaptation of the tale Dickens himself sanctioned. Entitled A Christmas Carol; or, Past, Present, and Future, it starred the legendary O. Smith (the stage name of Richard John Smith) as Scrooge. Smith's name later became nearly synonymous with melodrama, so the acting was likely not to have been overly subtle. Edward Fitzball, who penned such famous melodramas as Jonathan Bradford, supplied the lyrics for "The Song of Christmas" which was sung during the Ghost of Christmas Present episode.

In spite of giving the production at the Adelphi his imprimatur, Dickens did not have high hopes for it. He later admitted in a letter that "O Smith was drearily better than I expected." Not high praise, but the show was a success, and Stirling's adaptation opened at the Park Theatre in New York City on Christmas Day later that same year.

Today, A Christmas Carol has become an annual theatre tradition, and my own adaptation was recently staged by the Passage Theater Company in Trenton, New Jersey. The fact is, Dickens just wrote a ripping good yarn, and it works brilliantly on stage.

Trenton Makes

There's a bridge across the Delaware River emblazoned with the words "TRENTON MAKES THE WORLD TAKES" touting the industrial power the city once had. What is made in Trenton today? Apparently, some great theatre!

Last night, I visited the Passage Theatre Company in Trenton for the first time (but hopefully not the last). They were performing my two-person adaptation of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. C. Ryanne Domingues directed the production, which starred Peter Bisgaier as Scrooge and Francis Kelly as... everybody else!

Bisgaier, who is also co-artistic director of Pegasus Theatre Company, is well known in the greater Trenton-Philadelphia area, appearing on stage at the Arden, InterAct, and Act II Playhouse, among other companies. Kelly, it turns out, has done a lot of work at Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, and we had fun talking about some mutual friends from there.

The production sold out, but was also available streaming, and I greatly appreciate the theatre's efforts to make the show as accessible as possible. Passage has been serving the Trenton community since 1985, and I hope they continue going strong!

CAROL This Weekend!

On Saturday, Passage Theatre Company will be presenting a one-night-only special holiday showing of my two-person adaptation of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

I'll be taking the train down to Trenton to see the play in person. Tickets for the live performance are sold out, but if you're interested in the show, you can also view it streaming for a fee. The performance begins at 7:00pm and is directed by Passage's artistic director, C. Ryanne Domingues.

Epiphany Theater Company originally commissioned the adaptation and produced it in Saratoga Springs in 2007. Amy Kaissar, who first approached me about writing the piece for Epiphany and who now is producing director at Bristol Riverside Theatre, will be coming to see the production in Trenton, so I'm looking forward to seeing her there!

While there's no replacement for live performance, I'm glad that the production will be available for folks to watch streaming. A number of companies have been making productions accessible online lately, including the Mint Theater Company, which is offering its archived production of Stanley Houghton's play Hindle Wakes for free until December 26th.

If you're not into streaming performances, though, and you weren't able to get a ticket to see A Christmas Carol before they sold out, consider going on Monday to see Bernard Shaw's Village Wooing performed as a live staged reading by Maryann Plunkett and Jay O. Sanders at Symphony Space. This special presentation by Gingold Theatrical Group promises to be a treat.

Christmas is Coming!

It's A Christmas Carol season again, and as I previously announced, Passage Theatre Company in Trenton, New Jersey will be presenting my two-person adaptation of A Christmas Carol on December 11th.

Not everyone will be able to get to the event, or feel comfortable doing so in the current Covid environment, especially if they happen to be vulnerable to the virus. That's why the theatre is also offering an opportunity for people to stream the performance from home.

If you're interested in attending this one-night holiday event, either virtually or in person, click here for more information. Tickets are $50 for the in-person performance and $25 to watch streaming. Your contribution will also help to support an important non-profit theatre serving the greater Trenton community.

Doors will open at 6pm with carolers, warm beverages, and sweet treats in the courtyard. The performance begins at 7pm. If you do come in person, masks and proof of vaccination are required.

Whether you watch the show live or streaming, I hope you can join us!