CHICAGO—It’s an amazing feat to present “A Christmas Carol” year after year and keep it fresh. Yet, now in its 47th year in Chicago, that’s exactly what the Goodman Theatre has accomplished. Finding new ways to keep the Charles Dickens’s classic interesting and inspiring—for those who’ve seen it and to entice newcomers—takes a formidable feat of theatrical stagecraft.
The presentation, adapted from Dickens’s 1843 novella by Tom Creamer, begins as it always does with the atmosphere of another time and another place. Set in Victorian England (with scenic design by Todd Rosenthal, exquisite lighting by Keith Parham, and period costumes by Heidi Sue McMath), the Goodman stage is transformed into a London street filled with carolers singing in preparation for Christmas, and with peddlers in winter wraps, hawking turkeys and chestnuts.
