Originally performed December 11, 12, 18, and 19, 2020
During COVID-19, Full Circle Players performed A Very Dickens Christmas Carol, a radio musical play by Rob Foley adapted from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
A Very Dickens Christmas Carol is a fun and unique rendition of the timeless story, A Christmas Carol, told through the warped lens of Jacob Marley.
Full Circle Players offered this musical radio play free to the public on our YouTube channel through December 2020. It will be available again, free to the public, on our YouTube channel in December.
View a short promo video of Rob Foley's A Very Dickens Christmas Carol below.
Cast of Characters
Jeremy Mercado
Preston Helms
Damaris Vizell
Kelly Bouslaiby
Maya Lumford
Ian Donley
Spencer Frankeberger
A note from the author, Rob Foley:
A Christmas Carol is either a play you love or a play you hate. You either can’t wait to see this Christmas classic every December, or you can’t believe anyone would want to watch the same slow, boring, drudge year after year. For me, I hated the play, and as a fan of parody, particularly Stan Freberg, I had wanted to satirize it for some time. In 2014, the time had come. I sat down, and began to word process.
My final draft was…mean spirited, to say the least. I pulled no punches. Everything was fodder for ridicule; the slow story, the inability of old actors playing Scrooge to memorize the large role, and especially the poor and destitute Cratchit family. After all, I had written a comedy, and comedy is other people’s pain. Ironically, it wasn’t until I had a wonderful experience playing Scrooge at Riverside Community Players, that I began to see my script in a new light. Portraying a character that has a life changing event can do that. I realized my script wasn’t funny, it was hurtful. And it was unworthy of publication. So, like many other previous projects, I moved the script off my desktop, never expecting to look at it again.
In the summer of 2020, Wendi Johnson messaged me. She wanted to produce an audio version of my play for her company, Full Circle Players. She asked if I would modify the stage play for radio. By this time, I actively disliked the script, but the chance to have your play produced is not one to be missed. I knew the sight gags needed to be removed, but it needed more. It needed a total rewrite. After two weeks, I had transformed my spiteful piece of writing into something I could be proud of. The play I used to hate is now the play I love.