Story by Charles Dickens
Words by Gayden Wren
(inspired by Sir W.S. Gilbert)
Music by Sir Arthur Sullivan

Two Victorian favorites in one entertaining package

OMP Productions:
  December 2004

From the author:

"A Christmas Carol is one of the most resonant stories ever written in the English language, and its by-now-mythic tale of loss and redemption is to some degree affecting in every version ever done, from Mickey Mouse or the Muppets to the original book and, of course, in innumerable stage versions.

I hope that anyone encountering A Gilbert & Sullivan Christmas Carol will at once detect that I love A Christmas Carol as much as I love Gilbert & Sullivan, and of course vice-versa.

This play is no powerful psychodrama, but rather a light-hearted blending of two forms of Victorian storytelling which I love. Not a parody or a tongue-in-cheek knockoff, it's a festive holiday show with all the drama of the Dickens original and all the buoyant spirit of Gilbert & Sullivan -- an excuse for a jolly old Christmas party in the best Victorian fashion.

After all, if there's one thing that Dickens stood for, and that Gilbert & Sullivan embodied, it's good, clean fun. Merry Christmas, everybody!"

A Gilbert & Sullivan Christmas Carol was presented for the first time in 1994, by the Gilbert & Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island.

In 2001 it enjoyed a sold-out Off-Broadway run in New York, where The New York Times called it "extremely funny... sure to warm more than one cold heart" and The New Yorker acclaimed it as "The old tale newly interesting-and a lot more fun."

No. 1. "Bah, Humbug!"
(Music: "Titwillow," The Mikado)
BALLADEER

No. 2. "My Name is Scrooge"
(Music: "I Am So Proud," The Mikado)
SCROOGE, TINY TIM, and BOB CRATCHIT

No. 3. "We've Come to Collect for the Poor"
(Music: "The Flowers That Bloom in the Spring," The Mikado)
KINDHEART, GOODMAN, SCROOGE, and BOB CRATCHIT

No. 4. "Head of a Banking Firm"
(Music: "Oh, Better Far," The Pirates of Penzance)
SCROOGE, with KINDHEART, GOODMAN, and BOB CRATCHIT

No. 5. "I Am the Very Model of the Mystic Supernatural"
(Music: No. 5a. "Beware, Beware," Ruddigore;
No. 5b. "For He Is a Major-General," The Pirates of Penzance;
No. 5c. "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General," The Pirates of Penzance)
GHOST OF MARLEY, SCROOGE, GHOST OF SAMUEL, CHORUS OF GHOSTS

No. 6. "Three Little Ghosts for Scrooge"
(Music: "Three Little Maids From School," The Mikado)
GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST, GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT, GHOST OF CHRISTMAS YET TO COME

No. 7. "I Am the Ghost of Christmas Past"
(Music: No. 7a. "But Stay," The Sorcerer;
No. 7b. "I Am the Monarch of the Sea," HMS Pinafore)
SCROOGE, GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST, CHORUS OF GHOSTS/PARTY GUESTS

No. 8. "When You Were a Lad"
(Music: "When I Was a Lad," HMS Pinafore;
No. 8a. "Eat, Drink and be Gay," The Sorcerer;
No. 8b. "For the Merriest Fellows Are We," The Gondoliers;
No. 8c. "If We're Weak Enough to Tarry," Iolanthe;
No. 8d. "You Understand?," Ruddigore;
No. 8e. "Oh, False One," The Pirates of Penzance;
No. 8f. "If You Give Me Your Attention," Princess Ida)
GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST, SCROOGE, FEZZIWIG, BELLE, YOUNG SCROOGE, YOUNG MARLEY, CHORUS OF PARTY GUESTS

No. 9. "I Know a Youth"
(Music: No. 9a. "But Who is This," Patience;
No. 9b. "I Know a Youth," Ruddigore)
SCROOGE, GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT

No. 10. "I Am the Nephew of Mr. Scrooge"
(Music: "I Am the Captain of the Pinafore," HMS Pinafore)
FRED, CHORUS OF SCROOGE'S RELATIVES

No. 11. "The Blessing"
(Music: "The Buttercup," Cox and Box)
BOB, TINY TIM

No. 12. "Now to the Banquet We Press"
(Music: "Now to the Banquet We Press," The Sorcerer)
THE CRATCHIT FAMILY

No. 13. "Things Yet to Come"
(Music: "The Voice From the Tomb," The Grand Duke)
GHOST OF CHRISTMAS YET TO COME, SCROOGE

No. 14. "Now, That's the House"
(Music: "I Stole the Prince," The Gondoliers)
GOSSIPS, GRAVEDIGGER, SCROOGE

No. 15. "My Eyes Are Fully Open"
(Music: "My Eyes Are Fully Open," Ruddigore;
No. 15a. "When I Go Out of Door," Patience;
No. 15b. "The Flowers That Bloom in the Spring," The Mikado;
No. 15c. "Like a Ghost His Vigil Keeping," The Yeomen of the Guard)
SCROOGE, KINDHEART, BOB, JACKIE, CHORUS OF PASSERSBY

No. 16. "Hooray for Mister Scrooge"
(Music: "He Is an Englishman," HMS Pinafore)
GOODMAN, TINY TIM, SCROOGE, ENSEMBLE

Last updated: 09/28/07