World Premiere of MANUAL CINEMA'S CHRISTMAS CAROL to be Livestreamed by COCA This Weekend

COCA will present Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol, a co-commission from Emmy Award-winning performance collective Manual Cinema, as a livestream performance on December 4-6, 2020. Through hundreds of paper puppets, miniatures, silhouettes, and a live original score, the cinema-going experience is created right before the audiences' eyes and comes together to tell an imaginative re-invention of the Charles Dickens holiday classic.

An avowed holiday skeptic, Aunt Trudy has been recruited to channel her late husband Joe's famous Christmas cheer. From the isolation of her Chicago apartment, she reconstructs his annual Christmas Carol puppet show-over a Zoom call while the family celebrates Christmas Eve under lockdown. But as Trudy becomes more absorbed in her own version of the story, the puppets take on a life of their own, and the family's call transforms into a stunning cinematic adaptation of the classic ghost story.

"I hope audiences take away some catharsis in seeing the journey of the characters," says Julia Miller, Co-Artistic Director of Manual Cinema. "On any given night, they could be experiencing the show live alongside audiences from California to Hawaii."

The performance will be broadcast live from the company's studio in Chicago on the following dates and times:

• Friday, December 4 at 6:00 p.m.
• Saturday, December 5 at 3:00 p.m. & 7:00 p.m.
• Sunday, December 6 at 3:00 p.m. & 6:00 p.m.

To purchase tickets to stream the performance, contact COCA's Box Office at 314.725.6555 or visit https://www.cocastl.org/event/manual-cinemas-christmas-carol/. Tickets are available for $15-20 for single and multiple viewer options. Ticket holders will receive an email with a link to view the performance at show time.

Additional opportunities are available for families to enjoy the stories and tastes of the season from the comfort of their home.

• COCA Speaker Series: Before the show on December 4, audiences will hear from St. Louis artistic leaders Hana S. Sharif, Artistic Director of The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, and Jennifer Wintzer, COCA's Artistic Director of Theatre, as part of the next installment of COCA's Speaker Series. Sharif and Wintzer will discuss their vision for A Christmas Carol next season as well as give a sneak peek into an exciting educational partnership between COCA and The Rep.
• Home for the Holidays Workshops: Audiences are invited to celebrate the season with COCA's Home for the Holidays cooking workshops which incorporate all the good times and sweet tastes from favorite holiday pop-ups. The virtual workshops provide holiday-themed culinary experiences during a live Zoom class as well as a recorded step-by-step video with cooking instructions.

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