A Homemade Christmas Carol

Making something new this holiday season with A Homemade Christmas Carol

A Homemade Christmas Carol

Does thinking about the holidays this year make you feel a bit like a Scrooge? We understand the feeling. It can be hard to stay merry when there’s so much going on in the world. For the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, the inability to produce our annual tradition of A Christmas Carol this year came as a disappointment. The Wolf Theatre renovations are nearly complete, but with current CDC and city guidelines in place for slowing the spread of COVID-19, it simply wasn’t possible to make it happen this year. We found ourselves saying, “Bah, humbug,” more times than we care to admit.

But then we had an idea. In May, students and teachers from all across the state submitted videos of their school theatre production and performances filmed from their homes to create a Virtual Bobby G Celebration. While we weren’t able to gather in person, this virtual event brought together an entire community to celebrate the wonder of high school theatre. This got us thinking — could we replicate the success of this event during the month of December? Could we rally our community to create a virtual holiday celebration?

From that idea, A Homemade Christmas Carol was born. The concept is simple — a retelling of the classic tale, made by the community and for the community. In a year where so much sense of community has been lost, it’s the perfect opportunity for us to come together and make (from home) the thing that brings us together — theatre!

Naturally, you’re now wondering how you can participate in this experiment. Here’s the plan: in less than two minutes, act out and record the story of A Christmas Carol from your home. You can act out all of the parts yourself or get your entire family involved. Write your own dialogue or improvise it as you go. Create costumes out of sheets, mops, paper… anything you have on hand. Build your own set out of cardboard boxes. The most important thing is to keep it short and be creative!

Once you’ve created your masterpiece, submit it before December 4. Our team will pick our favorite moments from various videos and stitch them together into a holiday mash-up video telling the full story of A Christmas Carol!

Here are the main sections that we’re looking for:

  • Humbug Scrooge (before his ghostly visitors)
  • The visit of Marley’s Ghost
  • The visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past
  • The visit from the Ghost of Christmas Present
  • The visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future
  • Merry Scrooge (after his eventful evening)

Submissions are due Fri, Dec 4, and must be no longer than two minutes.

Creating a piece of theatre virtually with our entire community is a grand experiment, but one that we’re excited to embark on. We look forward to seeing your creativity in action!

Need help learning the ropes of shooting a great video? Watch this video for tips.