Casey Affleck, Jane Kaczmarek and More to Guest Star in A CHRISTMAS CAROL: TWIST YOUR DICKENS! at CTG

Center Theatre Group and The Second City are assembling a collection of special guests to drop in to the Kirk Douglas Theatre for a surprise cameo appearance in The Second City's "A Christmas Carol: Twist Your Dickens!"

The partial list of guest stars includes Casey Affleck, Diedrich Bader, Gregg Binkley, Mindy Cohn, Mike Hagerty, Jane Kaczmarek, Richard Karn, Keegan-Michael Key, Matthew Modine, Rhea Perlman, Paul Provenza, Danny Pudi, Yakov Smirnoff, Mindy Sterling, Verne Troyer, Reginald Veljohnson and Fred Willard. One guest star appears per performance, each putting their own comic stamp on the production, and the audience never knows which guest star they will see.

Written by Second City alumni, Peter Gwinn and Bobby Mort (both formerly of "The Colbert Report"), The Second City's "A Christmas Carol: Twist Your Dickens!" opens December 12, 2013, at Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre. Previews begin December 8 and performances will run through December 29, 2013.

Directed by Marc Warzecha (Resident Director, The Second City) the permanent cast features Second City alumni Frank Caeti, Amanda Blake Davis, Ithamar Enriquez, Brendan Jennings, Joe Liss, Jaime Moyer and Ron West.

Created in collaboration with CTG, The Second City's satirical twist on Dickens features Scrooge, the Cratchits and all the time-traveling ghosts normally found in this uplifting holiday fare. "Twist Your Dickens!" also breathes new life into the classic tale of hope and redemption with an ever changing offering of audience confessions that can send the improvisational actors careening into situations and subjects that would make a TMZ producer blush (the recommended age for this production is 16 and above).

The holiday merrymaking cannot be contained to the stage as the lobby of the Kirk Douglas Theatre has taken on a festive party atmosphere complete with holiday decorations, games and cocktails including Tiny Timtinis and Scroogedrivers.

"A Christmas Carol: Twist Your Dickens!" has set design by Tom Buderwitz, costume design by Leah Piehl, lighting design by Brandon Baruch and sound design by Cricket S. Myers and the production stage manager is Kirsten Parker.

The Second City specializes in sketch comedy and improvisation and has delighted audiences for over 50 years. With resident stages in Chicago and Toronto and touring ensembles, The Second City entertains over a million guests each year. It is also the largest training center in the world for improvisation, sketch and acting, with schools in Los Angeles, Chicago and Toronto, and 20,000 registrations per year. The Second City served as a training ground for a host of famous alumni, including Mike Myers, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, John Candy, John Belushi, Catherine O'Hara, Tina Fey, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert and more. Colbert said, "The Second City was everything to me," and Murray said, "Second City is the best job anybody in the American theatre can get. It's incomparable." The New York Times reported that "The entire recent tradition of American satire can be summed up in three words: The Second City."

Tickets for "A Christmas Carol: Twist Your Dickens!" are available by calling (213) 628-2772, online at www.CenterTheatreGroup.org, in person at the Center Theatre Group box office at the Ahmanson Theatre or two hours prior to performances at the Kirk Douglas Theatre box office. The Kirk Douglas Theatre is located at 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232.

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