Neal Zoren’s Plays to See in Philadelphia This December

God bless us everyone! There are enough productions of A Christmas Carol, each with a different variation of the Dickens classic, to require mufflers for Coxey’s army.

Venues bringing Scrooge, Cratchits, and various ghosts to the fore are McCarter Theatre (David Thompson, adapter), Hedgerow Theatre (Jared Reed), Delaware Theatre Company (Patrick Barlow), Lantern Theater (Anthony Lawton), Crossroads Theatre (musical by Lynn Ahrens, Alan Menken, and Michael Ockrent), Wings of Paper Theater, Morrisville’s Actors NET as Scrooge’s Revenge (Joe Doyle),and Bucks County Playhouse in its delightful local adaptation by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen, Ebenezer Scrooge’s Big Playhouse Christmas Show.

1812 Productions provides its Christmas cheer by presenting diva Joilet Harris in a holiday concert, Joy to the World. On the same night, December 16, Philadelphia Artists Collective and Teatro del Sol provide an alternative to all this Yuletide gaiety with a reading of Federico Garcia Lorca’s Yerma.

Meanwhile, at Ambler’s Act II Playhouse, merriment of a singular sort abounds as April Woodall reprises her marvelous portrayal of the tone-deaf Florence Foster Jenkins in Souvenir.

The Resident Theatre provides a full-blown production of Into the Woods, while the Academy of Music begins December with a touring production of The Spongebob Musical.

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