'A Christmas Carol' coming to the Grove

After successful runs in Boston and New York, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, "a play with music," is coming to Coconut Grove on Sunday, December 8 with a performance at The Barnacle, 3485 Main Highway. 

This two-man production features Dickens’ original language supported by beloved Christmas songs and old-fashioned foley-style sound effects, all performed live.

"In 1867 Dickens toured New York City performing his A Christmas Carol. We're doing the same thing—in venues you don't expect to see theater,” said co-adapter and actor Jeffries Thaiss. “This show is designed to not need a set. These historic places, they become our set.”

Thaiss and his co-adapter and co-performer, veteran Broadway actor/musician Eric Scott Anthony, present the story in 75 minutes “without modernizing or watering-down” Dickens’ original language. Thaiss plays all the roles, from Scrooge to the Ghosts and more than 20 others. Anthony underscores the action on guitar, singing traditional Christmas carols while creating sound effects one might have heard in the 1800s.

The Boston run played to standing ovations for both adults and students, but Thaiss is modest about its success. "Maintaining Dickens' sometimes archaic language, when I first spoke his original text for an audience of 300 school kids I thought, ‘what have I done? I’m gonna lose them!’ But at the end of the show they were on their feet. That's not me, or Eric—that's the power of telling this story simply, with little artifice, and letting the words work. This message of redemption is really welcome."

Eric Stocc Anthony is a Broadway and national tour veteran musician and actor who has brought his celebrated guitar, vocal, and acting skills to theatres, symphony concert halls, and clubs all over the country and overseas, and has frequently collaborated with Tony and Grammy Award winning artists. He's toured the country with his band Ben Hope & the Uptown Outfit.

Jeffries Thaiss is an award-winning actor who has played in a wide range of roles from Shakespeare and Ibsen to favorites of musical theatre at many of the country's top venues, including Tony Award winning theatres Seattle Rep, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, and The Shakespeare Theatre of Washington, DC.

Clay Hopper, the director has numerous directing, producing, artistic associate credits including Olney Theatre Center, New Repertory Theatre, Contemporary American Theatre Festival's Actor's Lab, Lincoln Center's Clark Studio Theatre, off-off-Broadway, and others. Clay has extensive experience teaching and directing at the university level, currently serving as Lecturer of Directing and Theatre Arts at Boston University.

Purchase tickets on Eventbrite or at the gate beginning at 6:30 pm for a performance beginning at 7:30 pm. Admission is $20 for ages 11 and up, $15 for members of The Barnacle Society, $10 for ages 6 to 10, $5 for ages 3 to 5, and free for children under 6. The performance is out back on the big lawn. Bring folding chairs and a rolling cooler and arrive early to choose the best spot for a picnic with friends.