A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol at Spencer Theatre At Kansas City Repertory Theatre

Mark Robbins plays Ebenezer Scrooge at Spencer Theatre, where three spirits have a difficult Christmas task: persuade a man devoted to his money that other people matter. Familiarity with the ending hardly makes his stubbornness less entertaining. Kansas City Repertory Theatre turns Charles Dickens's tale into a shared live family story that doesn't ask you to pretend you've never heard it before; it asks you to hear it aloud, together, with a miser, a family and a ghostly warning to care about.

The Cratchits crowd around their modest table, Tiny Tim lifts his crutch, and generosity stops being an abstract virtue your relatives argue about over dinner. Caring for other people becomes concrete when you watch Bob Cratchit stretch a small salary across too many mouths, when Fezziwig throws open his workshop for a dance that costs nothing but joy. Scrooge's isolation isn't a character flaw to analyze—it's a chill you feel in the theater, a warning that hoarding warmth leaves you alone in the cold.

Jason Chanos and Stuart Carden's adaptation includes Candlelight Carol, a moment of flickering intimacy that gives this production a specific theatrical identity beyond the familiar plot. Darrington Clark directs this local Kansas City production of Dickens’s story.

Get your tickets for A Christmas Carol at Spencer Theatre and give December one night that isn't another errand.