Arizona Theatre Company to Present A CHRISTMAS CAROL & SANTALAND DIARIES This Holiday Season

Two of the Valley's favorite and most-celebrated actors will bring their special gifts to the holiday season in limited engagement one-person performances of Charles Dickens' beloved holiday classic, A Christmas Carol, and David Sedaris' hilarious anti-holiday tale, The Santaland Diaries. Produced by Arizona Theatre Company in association with the Herberger Theatre Center, both shows will play in an intimate custom-built 250-seat stage-within-a-stage located in the grandly theatrical setting of Center Stage in downtown Phoenix.

Katie McFadzen will use Dickens' own immortal words to turn the family-friendly A Christmas Carol into a one-woman tour-de-force as she performs all 27 characters from Scrooge to Tiny Tim. The edgy, irreverent May will fit right into Sedaris' cult classic, The Santaland Diaries, the wickedly true, outrageously funny tale of best-selling humorist Sedaris' tenure as an unemployed writer taking a job as Crumpet the Elf in Macy's Santaland display.

Both shows will be performed on an alternating schedule from Thursday, Dec. 10 through Saturday, Dec. 26. Ticket prices for both shows range from $23-$51.

A Christmas Carol will be adapted and directed by Matthew Wiener, who put his own unique touch on the popular Dickens tale for more than 19 years while with Actors Theatre of Phoenix. The Santaland Diaries, adapted for the stage by Joe Mantello, will be directed by ATC Artistic Director David Ira Goldstein.

"These terrifically entertaining plays during the holidays will provide theatergoers with really creative options to celebrate during that time of year," Wiener said. "Seeing A Christmas Carol back on stage at the Herberger Theater and working with Katie make the experience very special to me."

"Cheer and churlishness go hand-in-hand during the holidays with these two delightful plays," said Goldstein. "Katie and Ron are certainly two treasures of our community, and the holidays are the best time for sharing treasures. Whether you have been appallingly naughty, or angelically nice, Ron and Kate have a show for you."

The full schedule can be found at www.arizonatheatre.org. Tickets can be purchased by visiting the ATC website or through the Herberger Theater Center Box Office.

The Santaland Diaries and A Christmas Carol are being produced in association with the Herberger Theater Center.

For more information call (602) 256-6995 or visit www.arizonatheatre.org.

CREATIVE TEAM

Set and Light Design: Paul Black

Costume Design: Kish Finnegan

Sound Design: Brian Peterson

Tickets for The Santaland Diaries and A Christmas Carol start at $23 and are subject to change depending on time, date and section, and are available at www.arizonatheatre.org or by calling the box office at (602) 256-6995. Discounts are available for seniors and active military. A $10 student ticket pricing is now available for all performances. Half-price rush tickets are available for all performances one hour prior to curtain at the ATC box office (subject to availability). Pay What You Can performance for A Christmas Carol is Wednesday, Dec. 16 at 7:30 p.m. and for The Santaland Diaries is Thursday, Dec. 17 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available for a suggested $10 donation. (Tickets must be purchased at the Herberger Theater Center starting one hour prior to curtain. Tickets are first-come, first served. Cash only. Two tickets maximum per person.) For discounts for groups of 10 or more, call (602) 256-6995

Arizona Theatre Company offers accessibility services for patrons with disabilities for select performances. Audio Description provides patrons with vision loss a running audio description of the movement and activities onstage through an infrared broadcast system. . Open captioning allows patrons to read the play's dialogue on an LED screen as the play progresses An Audio-Described and open captioned performance of A Christmas Carol is scheduled Sunday, Dec. 13 at 4 p.m. and for The Santaland Diaries on Sunday, Dec. 13 at 7 p.m. Interested patrons with vision loss may request a tactile tour one hour prior to curtain. For open-captioned performances, patrons should request seats best suited to captioning when purchasing tickets. Large print and Braille playbills and infrared listening amplification devices are also available at every ATC performance with reservation. TTY access for the box office is available in Phoenix at (602) 256-6995 or via Arizona Relay at (800) 367-8939 (TTY/ASCII).