MRS. BOB CRATCHIT'S WILD CHRISTMAS BINGE to Play The Dio for the Holidays

The Dio - Dining & Entertainment, Livingston County's professional, award winning dinner theatre, is very excited to present the hilariously irreverent comedy, MRS. BOB CRATCHIT'S WILD CHRISTMAS BINGE by Christopher Durang, directed by Steve DeBruyne with musical direction by Brian Rose.

In this departure from Dickens, young Scrooge's exclamations of "Bah, humbug!" are an undiagnosed "kind of seasonal Tourette's Syndrome," and The Ghost of Christmas Past is played by a sassy African-American woman with enough attitude to portray all three spirits (which she does). She tries to show Scrooge his past, present and future in order to change him, but her magic keeps malfunctioning in Durang's version of the beloved holiday classic, and they consistently find themselves transported to the wrong time and place. She tries to take Scrooge back to see his old employers, the Fezziwigs-"always an audience favorite"-but instead she and Scrooge keep appearing in the present at the Cratchit's pathetic home. Mrs. Bob Cratchit, a minor character in the Dickens, takes center stage here. No longer loving and long suffering, Mrs. Bob is in a rage: She's sick of Tiny Tim (the goody-goody crippled child), she hates her twenty other children (most of them confined to the root cellar), including oversized Little Nell, and she wants to get drunk and jump off London Bridge. As the Ghost loses more control, the plot morphs into parodies of Oliver Twist, "The Gift of the Magi" and It's a Wonderful Life. And to make matters worse, Scrooge and Mrs. Bob seem to be kindred souls falling in love. With a dénouement that is two parts Touched by an Angel and one part The Queen of Mean, Scrooge's tale of redemption and gentle grace is placed squarely on its head.

The cast of MRS. BOB CRATCHIT'S WILD CHRISTMAS BINGE features performances by Kylie Scarpace, Gavin Burwell, Dominic Ignagni, Ebony Hull, Dale Dobson, Steve DeBruyne, Brendan August Kelly, Vanessa Sawson, Mark Bernstein, Jared Schneider, Amanda Durham, Natalie Rose Sevick, and Victor McDermott.

All tickets include The Dio's dinner buffet, a non-alcoholic beverage, dessert and the show. The menu for MRS. BOB CRATCHIT'S WILD CHRISTMAS BINGE will include fresh, homemade bread sticks, house salad with choice of dressing, green beans sautéed in butter, real mashed potatoes and gravy, honey glazed ham with pineapple, and The Dio's signature boneless chicken breast, hand battered and fried to a golden brown.

Performances take place at The Dio, 177 E. Main Street, Pinckney Michigan, 48169 from November 27 to December 30, Friday and Saturday evenings, and Sunday afternoons. There will be one Thursday matinee on October 15, as well as added evening performances on Tuesday, December 22, Wednesday, December 23 and Wednesday, December 30.

Join us on New Year's Eve, Thursday, December 31 for dinner and our final performance of MRS. BOB CRATCHIT'S WILD CHRISTMAS BINGE followed by our annual New Year's Eve party! We'll have an open dance floor as we welcome Soniq Cell for the third year in a row. They'll be playing the best dance music from the 80s, 90s and today as you enjoy our cash bar, plus a complimentary champagne toast at midnight for you, your sweetheart and your closest friends and family. We will offer a late night buffet, featuring freshly made pizzas from our kitchen, the crust of which is made with our popular breadsticks.

Tickets for all performances, and our New Year's Eve party, are available now and may be purchased by visiting diotheatre.com or by calling (517) 672-6009. Shows are already selling out. We suggest making reservations well in advance.

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