Description

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This version of the famous story contains nearly forty characters, but with reasonable doubling it can be performed by a cast of twenty - 10 men, 6 women, 2 boys and girls. The story of Scrooge's conversion from miserliness to benevolence contains scenes that elaborate a Christmas play into a simple form of Christmas pantomime.Large cast.

About the Author

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CHARLES DICKENS was born on February 7, 1812, in Landport, Portsea, England. He died in Kent on June 9, 1870. The second of eight children of a family continually plagued by debt, the young Dickens came to know not only hunger and privation, but also the horror of the infamous debtors' prison and the evils of child labor. A turn of fortune in the shape of a legacy brought release from the nightmare of prison and "slave" factories and afforded Dickens the opportunity of two years' formal schooling at Wellington House Academy. He worked as an attorney's clerk and newspaper reporter until his "Sketches by Boz" (1836) and "The Pickwick Papers "(1837) brought him the amazing and instant success that was to be his for the remainder of his life. In later years, the pressure of serial writing, editorial duties, lectures, and social commitments led to his separation from Catherine Hogarth after twenty-three years of marriage. It also hastened his death at the age of fifty-eight, when he was characteristically engaged in a multitude of work.