The timeless tale of Ebenezer Scrooge comes to thrilling new life as Tony Award® winner Jefferson Mays (I Am My Own Wife, Gentleman’s Guide…) plays over 50 roles in a virtuosic, master class of a performance that must be seen to be believed. This theatrical achievement comes from the haunting and hope-filled vision of one of Broadway’s most imaginative directors, Michael Arden (Tony-winning Best Revival – Once on this Island).
Creepy and antic, gloomy and giddy, Michael Arden's production capitalizes on every trick in Dickens's story and then pulls a few new ones out of Scrooge's top hat. Peace on earth? Mercy mild? Please. There are moments when you would swear that Mays couldn't possibly be unaccompanied, so raucous is this 'Carol.' But he is, more or less. (Danny Gardner briefly joins as a wordless specter.) Happily, Mays - who has also triumphed in multiple roles in 'I Am My Own Wife,' for which he won a Tony Award, and 'A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder' - is a master of manifold parts. If he were left alone, without lights, sound, projections or Dane Laffrey's curving, swerving set, he might put across this fable even more convincingly.
'Marley was dead,' booms the commanding voice of stage icon Jefferson Mays, here taking on Scrooge, the narrator and every role besides. (Mays wrote the nearly one-man adaptation alongside Arden and Susan Lyons.) He skulks out of total blackness, barely visible at first, seeming an apparition from the beyond in Ben Stanton's masterful lighting. The stage will barely brighten through all the standard Christmas Carol table setting-'Bah Humbug,' etc. Mays' Scrooge drifts through these introductory scenes like a ghost himself, all but dead to the world already. Jefferson Mays can be, to put it mildly, a bit of a ham. But here, Mays brings a soft touch to a mammoth assignment. Shifting between multiple characters within the same scene, from ghost to narrator to Tiny Tim, he slides gracefully between personas with little more than a head tilt or the slightest of vocal modulations. There are a few grander moments as well, of course, but for the most part Mays keeps it grounded. His Fezziwig is an especially endearing creation, and his narrator's open-heartedness is often moving in its own right.
1994 | Off-Broadway |
Original Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
1995 | Off-Broadway |
Return Engagement [off-Broadway] Off-Broadway |
1996 | Off-Broadway |
Return Engagement [off-Broadway] Off-Broadway |
1996 | Broadway |
Return Engagement Broadway |
1997 | Off-Broadway |
Return Engagement [off-Broadway] Off-Broadway |
1998 | Off-Broadway |
Return Engagement [off-Broadway] Off-Broadway |
1999 | Off-Broadway |
Return Engagement [off-Broadway] Off-Broadway |
2000 | Off-Broadway |
Return Engagement [off-Broadway] Off-Broadway |
2022 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2023 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Jefferson Mays |
2023 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Lighting Design (Play or Musical) | Ken Elliott |
2023 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Solo Performance | Jefferson Mays |
2023 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Sound Design (Play or Musical) | Joshua D. Reid |
2023 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Video or Projection Design (Play or Musical) | Lucy Mackinnon |
2023 | Tony Awards | Best Lighting Design of a Play | Ben Stanton |
2023 | Tony Awards | Best Scenic Design of a Play | Dane Laffrey |
2023 | Tony Awards | Best Sound Design of a Play | Joshua D. Reid |
Videos