The Marsh Berkeley to Present A VERY SCRUMPY HOLIDAY CAROL Holiday Variety Cabaret
Created by Wayne Harris, Joyful Raven, and Stephanie Weisman.
By: A.A. Cristi Nov. 26, 2025
The Marsh Berkeley and the ghosts of politicians' past, present and future have a message this holiday season with an irreverent variety show, A Very Scrumpy Holiday Carol starring Joyful Raven as the laughably notorious King Scrump. Created by Joyful Raven, Wayne Harris, and Stephanie Weisman, in this riotous cabaret, Scrump sits on his throne one evening for a feast with his royal court, both dead and alive.
Tormented by the consequences of his rule and a rotating cast of clowns, entertainers, and ghostly politicians, Scrump is forced to reckon with the fact he may not go to heaven. This satirical production boasts festive musical accompaniment by the Randy Craig & Friends band and performances from beloved Marsh entertainers such as Debbie Davis, Candace Johnson, Kathy Kennedy, Karen Ripley, Holly Shaw, and Unique Derique.
Kicking off with a pay-what-you-can performance at The Marsh's annual holiday party, A Very Scrumpy Holiday Carol will run December 17, 19 & 20, 2025, with performances at 7:30pm at The Marsh Berkeley Cabaret (2120 Allston Way, Berkeley). For tickets ($20-$35 general admission, $50 and $100 reserved, plus a $3 convenience fee per ticket) or for more information, the public may visit themarsh.org.
ABOUT CAST AND CREATIVES
Wayne Harris is an award-winning solo performer, writer, educator, curriculum innovator, and musician. His plays include Mother's Milk, The May Day Parade, Jockamo, Train Stories, and Drapetomania. His production Train Stories was critically acclaimed, earning a BroadwayWorld San Francisco Awards nomination and a sold-out extended run at The Marsh. A gifted artist, Harris is passionate about storytelling that combines his lived experience with hopeful declarations for the future. Harris was invited by the U.S. State Department to travel to the Middle East and perform his play, The Letter: Martin Luther King at the Crossroads. Retired from being program director for The Marsh Youth Theater in San Francisco, which served underprivileged students in after-school programs, Harris now travels extensively throughout the U.S. providing “Improvisation & Performance” workshops for Youth Pageantry groups. He is currently a facilitator for Formerly Incarcerated People's Performance Project (FIPPP), a project guiding formerly incarcerated adults in creating, producing and performing their stories, partnered with Berkeley Repertory Theatre in bringing storytelling to programs in San Francisco County jails.
Joyful Raven is an award-winning actor and director celebrated for her bold, deeply human solo work who has spent the last two decades creating original performances. Her hit solo comedy Tales of a Sexual Tomboy was hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as “one of the funniest shows now on display on Bay Area stages,” winning Best of the Fringe at the 2016 San Francisco International Fringe Festival before an Off-Broadway run in 2017. Her latest show, Breed or Bust, earned five stars from Theatre Weekly UK at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe, where it was nominated for an Offie, and received a Producer's Encore Award, a gold medal from TV-olution, and a Best Comedy nomination at the 2022 Hollywood Fringe. Raven has directed and mentored hundreds of storytellers, co-founded the award-winning Rococo Risqué, co-authored four plays with the Prize of Hope-winning Human Nature, and teaches solo theater at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre School of Theatre.
Stephanie Weisman, founder and artistic/executive director of The Marsh, has led the organization since its inception. Under her guidance, The Marsh has expanded from a weekly performance series to producing more than 500 performances annually on its San Francisco and Berkeley stages. Her contributions have been recognized with the Jerry Friedman Lifetime Achievement Award from the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle (SFBATCC) and designation as a Local Hero by the SF Bay Guardian. Weisman's journalism, prose, and poetry have been published nationally, and she received a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts for her Master's thesis, a poetry performance titled Dancemasters. Her performances include the opera Aphrodisia and two solo performance musicals, Breed & Rescue and Planet DoReMi. Her latest play, 180 Days. To Die. To Live. played at The Marsh in 2024.
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