The UK premiere at the Plough Youth Theatre, Great Torrington, in 2023.
Photo by Katherine Lockett.
About the play
In The Night Before Christmas, a group recitation of the famous poem A Visit from St. Nicholas immediately goes awry when the narrators start arguing over the title, authorship, and the meaning of it all... but what seems like a recipe for disaster evolves into a performance that is more inclusive, more educational, more ridiculous, and just more fun than the original!
The cast of the Fort Stockton High School production, who toured the show to elementary schools and retirement homes! Photo by Susann Hall.
Why this play?
When I was a child, my mother would read Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas to us every Christmas Eve, and every time she got to the line “I ran to the window and threw up the sash”, my older sister Susie would make puking noises because she knew it grossed me out. It’s been decades now, but the family tradition continues unbroken. I and my siblings have children of our own now, and while we can't always celebrate Christmas together, when we do we always read the poem to the kids on Christmas Eve, and my sister, who you think might be old enough to have grown out of it after almost fifty years, still pretends to throw up. It still annoys me just as much - but it also inspired this play!
Sample Dialogue...
2024 Holiday Season productions!
The play was performed at the Arcola School in Saskatchewan, Canada, the Halfpenny Youth Theatre in Spanish Fork, Utah, and the State College Community Theatre in Stage College, PA in 2024! We'll see where it goes for 2025!
