And all the characters you’d expect are there, with the addition of an onstage rather than voiceover role for Jean, the narrator. On the other hand, I’m not entirely sure why a young boy would have a daydream about a Prohibition-era speakeasy, as is depicted in another number, but OK.Įxcept for leaving out the “Little Orphan Annie” decoder ring story and the scene in the Christmas-tree lot (although the associated car ride with the flat tire incident is there), the plot pretty much sticks to that of the movie.
“Ralphie to the Rescue,” showing all the heroic things he would do if he were gifted with said gun, is one of the show’s musical highlights.Īnd in a story where the famous leg lamp plays an important role, the fact that the writers included a number where there’s a (wait for it…) kick line of a whole slew of such lamps makes perfect sense. Those bigger numbers, which in most cases are there to advance the plot by showing Ralphie’s daydreams around his coveted Red Ryder BB gun, are really funny. The addition of songs doesn’t detract one bit, and while there are of course plenty of numbers where all of a sudden the stage is full of people singing and dancing, none of it seems over the top in terms of the storyline. Now, because it’s true that just about every holiday (or kids’) movie apparently gets made into a stage musical if you only wait long enough, the idea of “A Christmas Story” getting that treatment may seem like just more crass commercialism.īut whatever the motive of the people whose idea the musical was, the fact is that, happily, the creative team of Joseph Robinette (book) and Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (lyrics) brought the story to the stage without losing any of its heart and charm. I first saw it a long time ago and, truth be told, thought it was cute enough but just didn’t understand the popularity that led to things like 24-hour marathons of it on TV.īut watching it last year, it occurred to me that it was exactly the sort of gently funny, nostalgic trip back to a simpler time that we all needed. “A Christmas Story” fell into the latter category. Parker unpacks the "major award" he won in a crossword puzzle contest while Reed Schwieterman, Kyrie Crist and Garrett Ensign look on in a scene from "A Christmas Story" at the Croswell Opera House.ĪDRIAN - Last Christmas season, as the pandemic left me with time I wouldn’t have had otherwise, I decided to watch some of those holiday movies I’d either never seen or hadn’t in a long time.
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