✧ Why This Story?
We return to A Christmas Carol because it holds one of the most hopeful ideas in all of literature: no matter how long someone has been lost, it may not be too late to find a way back.
In our adaptation, Scrooge has learned to protect himself from grief by closing the door on other people. The spirits do not come simply to frighten or punish him. They help him remember what he loved, face what he lost, and understand that isolation never kept him safe. It only left him alone. That journey feels especially meaningful at Christmas, when joy and sorrow often arrive at the same table. This story makes space for both. It reminds us that healing can begin with something as simple as speaking honestly, accepting an invitation, moving one chair closer, or allowing another person to help carry what hurts.
We chose this story because it is filled with ghosts, laughter, music, memory, and Christmas wonder, but most of all because it sends us home believing in the possibility of change and in the people who help us reach it.
About This Production
Christmas Eve, 1977. Two longtime family friends have gathered at an old Galena bed-and-breakfast for their first Christmas without Barbara, the daughter, sister, and friend whose absence is felt in every familiar tradition. When a blizzard interrupts their television broadcast of A Christmas Carol, the youngest among them suggests that they finish the story themselves. Blankets become cloaks, luggage becomes London, fireplace tools become treasures, and the people they know best become Scrooge, Marley, the Cratchits, and the spirits of Christmas.
What begins as a way to save the evening gradually becomes something more. Dickens’ story gives the family permission to laugh, remember, speak honestly, and discover that grief becomes lighter when people are willing to carry it together. Filled with familiar carols, 1970s Christmas nostalgia, playful theatrical invention, and the warmth of people making a place for one another, A PaperMap Christmas Carol is a hopeful holiday experience about memory, family, and finding your way back to joy.
