A new take on an old classic at Stage 212

Scrooge. Marley. Tiny Tim. The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. You’ve seen “A Christmas Carol” and you know how it ends. No reason to see it again, right?

Come to Stage 212 in La Salle and you might change your mind.

Two accomplished actors are mounting an independent staging (Stage 212 is the host site only) of “A Christmas Carol: Ghosts of Christmas.” It is an adaptation of the holiday classic by Charles Dickens in “radio show” format.

Dave Roden and Jeff Sudakov, a duo better known as Her Majesty’s Radio Theatre, play Nigel and Willie, respectively, who narrate and voice the Christmas staple as if for a pre-TV radio broadcast in 1950s London.

“If you close your eyes, you can listen to the radio play,” Sudakov said. “You can also watch us play with all the props and interact with each other, which the radio audience would not see.”

Roden emphasized the radio format provides room for audience participation. He and Sudkov will hold up signs cuing local audiences to lend their voices to the program. He encouraged local audiences to come in eager to participate actively in the radio show.

“We can’t have the oohs and the applause and the cheers on our own. Your voices bring so much,” Roden said. “You have the opportunity to be able to participate and bring that energy to the show.”

It will be an offbeat and even refreshing experience for local fans of the stage who admittedly know “A Christmas Carol” verbatim thanks to annual screen adaptations by Reginald Owen and Alastair Sim, among numerous others.

In between recitations of Dickens, Willie and Nigel have some off-air byplay that has provided the actors with great leeway for improvisation. During rehearsals, Roden and Sudakov have played off one another verbally and established some witty repartee.

“When we find an improve we go, ‘Write it in so we don’t forget to do it,’” Sudakov said. “We do try to stick to the script pretty carefully, but a lot of it will sound improvised to the audience for sure.”

“A Christmas Carol: Ghosts of Christmas” has had an unusual evolution. During COVID-19 restrictions, Roden and Sudakov satisfied their artistic longings by staging radio shows via Zoom. Once pandemic restrictions were lifted, they tried the radio format in live settings.

Last year, the duo brought the format to Stage 212 with the Sherlock Holmes classic “The Hound of the Baskervilles.”

Edward S. Koizumi fabricated a series of sound machines that not only simulate a 1950s radio studio but actually reproduce the footsteps, clinking chains and other telltale sounds that indicate when Scrooge is receiving visitors from beyond.

“A Christmas Carol: The Ghosts of Christmas” will be staged at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 6 and at 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 8.

Tickets for Her Majesty’s Radio Theatre presents “A Christmas Carol: The Ghosts of Christmas” are $17 each. Tickets may be purchased online by visiting stage212.org or by calling the box office at 815-224-3025 and leaving a message.