Two community theaters do the Dickens thing in honor of the holiday season, one following time-honored tradition, the other straying into comedic territory. St. Petersburg Little Theatre’s A Christmas Carol features more than 40 performers and all the usual characters – miserable miser Ebenezer Scrooge, his ever-suffering assistant Bob Cratchit, the apparitions who show him the err of his ways. Carrollwood Players stages A Dickens' Christmas Carol: a Traveling Travesty in Two Tumultuous Acts. Mark Landon Smith's humorous play-within-a-play focuses on a company's blundering attempt to put on their 15th annual production of A Christmas Carol after the star of the show feigns illness and quits on opening night, and her understudy – who knows all of one line – writes herself into virtually every scene. Carol, 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun., through Dec. 21, St. Pete Little Theatre, 4025 31st St. S., St. Petersburg, $20 adults/$10 students, 727-866-1973; Travesty, 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 3 p.m. Sun., through Dec. 20, Carrollwood Playhouse, 4333 Gunn Highway, Tampa, $14 adults/$12 seniors and students, 813-265-4000.
This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2008.