Reading The Christmas Carol Script

Last week we introduced Charles Dickens' story, "The Christmas Carol," and watched "Mickey's Christmas Carol" to give us an idea of the plot. This week we're going to read the play outloud, but before we get to the reading of the script, here are a few facts about "The Christmas Carol" you may not have known:

A Christmas Carol was written by Charles Dickens in 1843.

What happens? Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by 3 ghosts at Christmas time, who encourage him to be a nicer person!
Charles Dickens full name was Charles John Huffam Dickens and his pen name was Boz.
The famous plum pudding that Mrs Cratchit made was not made of plums, but raisins.
The main characters of the story include Fezziwig, Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit and most famously Ebenezer Scrooge.
Ebenezer Scrooge’s famous catchphrase ‘Bah Humbug’ was only said twice by him in the book.
A Christmas Carol was written by hand and a typesetter (someone who set the type to print the book--the old fashioned way!) would have had to make sense of Charles Dickens’ crossings out and spelling mistakes before making the books.
There have been more than 50 film versions of A Christmas Carol including versions starring The Muppets, Barbie, Mickey Mouse and Mr Magoo.
One of the morals in A Christmas Carol is ‘To live our lives in a way that benefits others as well as ourselves’.

 Now, it's time to have a little fun with the play and act out the script for ourselves. We used two class sessions to read, discuss vocabulary, and try out our acting skills. I'll have to say, we have some quite talented students!

Follow the script below.

A Christmas Carol Play
(Adapted from the story by Charles Dickens by Walter Ben Hare)
 
A Christmas Carol Play Characters
A Christmas Carol Play Scenery and Costumes

A Christmas Carol Play Act One
A Christmas Carol Play Act Two
A Christmas Carol Play Act Three
A Christmas Carol Play Act Four
A Christmas Carol Play Act Five
A Christmas Carol Play Act Six
A Christmas Carol Play Act Seven
A Christmas Carol Play Act Eight
A Christmas Carol Play Act Nine

Now a few pictures of some of the highlights!

A Christmas Carol

The man you see in this photo is the famous and prolific English writer, Charles Dickens, who lived from 1812 to 1870. Have you heard of the story of Oliver Twist? Dickens wrote it. Great Expectations? Dickens wrote it.  A Tale of Two Cities? Dickens wrote that too, and many, many others. If you would like to know something about the life of Charles Dickens, watch this short video.

One of the most well known of Charles Dickens' stories is The Christmas Carol, first published in 1843. It is a story that is told time and time again--especially at the Christmas season. The main character is Ebenezer Scrooge, a grumpy, miserly (cheap) old man who needs to be taught the true meaning of Christmas. He's visited by three spirits (kind of like ghosts), who each teach him a lesson about generosity, kindness, the value of life, and goodwill toward all people. Do you think Ebenezer Scrooge learns his lesson at the end? Will he emerge from this a changed man? Below is a picture of a stage performance of A Christmas Carol. It shows the visit of Jacob Marley, a man who worked for Scrooge for a long time, but is now dead (wait, if he's dead, then how...? Oh right, he's a ghost!--Pretty scary!). He warns Scrooge of the coming of the three spirits.

Scrooge and Marley

There are many versions of Charles Dickens The Christmas Carol, which shows its immense popularity even after all of these years.

• Here's an animated version with Tim Curry doing the voice of Scrooge: A Christmas Carol
• If you like old black and white films, this classic called Scrooge is from 1935.
• This one is my personal favorite, a musical, also called Scrooge, based on A Christmas Carol
• For good fun, you may like to watch Mickey's Christmas Carol, starring none other than Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and a whole cast of Disney characters! 
• Below is another nice version of the film starring George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge.

For the Next few class sessions, we'll be working on a reading of The Christmas Carol.