From Obie-winning playwright Craig Lucas and Tony Award winner and A.C.T. Artistic Director Pam MacKinnon comes a joyous and puckishly funny adaptation of Charles Dickens’s beloved classic. A small theater troupe in the town of Whynot has gathered to put up their director’s new version of A Christmas Carol. From the first rehearsal to opening night, we follow these sometimes-reluctant comrades on their quest to put on a great show with too little time and money but no shortage of opinions. An ingenious set and costume design by Tony Award winner David Zinn (A.C.T.’s The Wizard of Oz) transports us behind the curtain as our ragtag cast boldly tackles prop mishaps and dance blunders, collaborating against all odds in hopes of a holiday miracle: real change. With festive music, magical ghosts, an effervescent cast of kids, and ample hijinks, this fresh telling amplifies Dickens’s moving and evergreen call for true generosity all through the year.

A Whynot Christmas Carol

Toni Rembe Theater

Four highly-gifted teens collab and collide one pivotal summer at a prestigious Berkeley girls’ music program. They improvise and crack wise atop a steadily thrumming undercurrent of disaster and emergency. This world premiere play with music comes from A.C.T.-commissioned playwright Eisa Davis, the singular writer-musician-actor whose keen ear for the language and inner lives of adolescent women brought us the Pulitzer finalist Bulrusher. At turns hilarious and melancholy, raucous and poetic, ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| is an exquisite and achingly true story of friendship, self-discovery, and the salvation of art-making.

Pam MacKinnon

Events

Upcoming events

Mar 12 - Apr 19, 2026

||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| · American Conservatory Theater

Past events

Nov 26 - Dec 24, 2024

A Whynot Christmas Carol · American Conservatory Theater

About

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