A Dickens of a Christmas 

Master storyteller Jonathan Kruk brings Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” to life at the Old Dutch Church in Sleepy Hollow. Photograph by Tom Nycz for Historic Hudson Valley.

“A Christmas Carol” – Charles Dickens’ ghostly tale of selfishness, greed and redemption – is one vertex of a holiday triangle that includes Handel’s “Messiah” and “The Nutcracker” ballet, set to Tchaikovsky. 

This season, Dickens gets several different spins, courtesy of cultural organizations in our area.  

First, master storyteller Jonathan Kruk does for “A Christmas Carol” what he does every Halloween for Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” with a dramatic performance at the Old Dutch Church on Saturdays and Sundays, Dec. 9 and 10 and 16 and 17. The Historic Hudson Valley production includes musical accompaniment by Jim Keyes.

Performances, designed for age 10 and up, take place at 2:30, 3:45 and 5 p.m. Capacity is limited and tickets — $47; $42 for children under age 18 — should be purchased in advance at www.hudsonvalley.org or by calling 914-366-6900.  

At Asbury-Crestwood United Methodist Church in Tuckahoe, Music at Asbury  presents “God Bless Us, Everyone” at 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 10. The free staged reading of “A Christmas Carol” will be accompanied by a singalong of songs and carols. 

From Dec. 19 through 23, the Westport Country Playhouse brings incoming artistic director Mark Shanahan’s Broadway smash, “A Sherlock Carol,” to Westport. “A Christmas Carol” meets Arthur Conan Doyle’s brilliant but idiosyncratic detective Sherlock Holmes as an adult Tiny Tim, now a successful doctor, engages him to investigate the mysterious death of his beloved benefactor, Ebenezer Scrooge.  

Many suburban theater companies would be thrilled to have a production on Broadway. When we interviewed him recently for a story on former playhouse artistic director, Oscar-winning actress Joanne Woodward, and her late husband, movie star Paul Newman,  Shanahan said he was delighted that “A Sherlock Carol” could make the reverse commute and thinks theatergoers will finally see Scrooge for what he really is. Though we may call someone who is miserly a “Scrooge,” he added, Ebenezer is transformed by his ghostly experience into the light-hearted, big-hearted person who lay hidden within. 

So “Scrooge,” Shanahan said, should actually be a compliment. For more, visit westportplayhouse.org.