Gather your family and friends around your TV or laptop, because Chicago’s interdisciplinary performance collective Manual Cinema is ready to broadcast directly to your home Manual Cinema’s Christmas Carol, its wildly inventive adaptation of the most famous holiday tale of all time.
Hailed as “an extraordinary creative achievement” by the Chicago Tribune after its 2020 debut, Manual Cinema’s Christmas Carol still promises to “stir your emotions even as it offers a message of hope” this holiday season.
Watch the trailer to Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol, featuring N. LaQuis Harkins as Aunt Trudy. The 2020 hit virtual production is returning this holiday season, available to rent on demand for home viewing, November 26-January 3. Tickets: manualcinema.com
Tickets, on sale now at manualcinema.com, are $15 for on-demand, at-home screenings, November 26, 2021-January 3, 2022. Ticket buyers have the option to enjoy the recorded version anytime within 48 hours of purchase. Each stream concludes with a pre-recorded, post-show “Puppet Time” video featuring Manual Cinema’s artists revealing how the on-screen magic was made. Closed captioning is available to all viewers.
On Thursday, December 16 at 7:30 p.m. CT, Manual Cinema will host a Facebook Live event to bring its artists and audiences together for a live discussion about the making of the original production in 2020, and how its story and themes still resonate one year later.
Scrooge with Christmas Present
Behind the scenes of Manual Cinema's Christmas Carol
Meet Aunt Trudy, an avowed holiday skeptic who has been recruited to channel her late husband Joe’s famous Christmas cheer. From the isolation of her Chicago apartment, Trudy attempts to reconstruct Joe’s annual Christmas Carol puppet show over Zoom while the rest of her extended family celebrates Christmas Eve remotely under lockdown. But as Trudy becomes more absorbed in her own version of the story, the puppets take on a life of their own, and the family’s call transforms into a stunning cinematic adaptation of Dickens’s classic ghost story.
Much like the company’s acclaimed on-screen contributions to the hit movie Candyman, Manual Cinema’s signature paper puppets, miniatures and silhouettes are combined with video animation and a haunting, original score to create a contemporary reincarnation of Dickens’s beloved holiday classic.
When it premiered in December 2020, Manual Cinema’s Christmas Carol was seen by audiences around the world and attracted widespread critical acclaim:
"A gorgeous mixed-media adaptation featuring live performance, stunning puppetry and animation." – The New York Times, Maya Phillips
“Audiences looking for something contemporary, new and different in the way of holiday entertainment they can enjoy in the comfort of their homes, should look no further than Manual Cinema’s gorgeous, heartfelt new production.” – ChicagoTheaterReview.com, Colin Douglas
“Beautiful to behold and engaging throughout…Manual Cinema’s ensemble of actors, puppeteers and designers turns common materials — cardboard, wire, string — into fantastical worlds.” – Chicago Sun-Times, Catey Sullivan
“An extraordinary creative achievement…This is the kind of one-of-a-kind artistic response that people will, I think, remember in Chicago as emblematic of this artistic moment.” – Chicago Tribune, Chris Jones
“Must-see…Every bit as magical and powerful as the most elaborate large-scale productions.” – ChicagoOnStage.com, Karen Topham
Christmas Past
The world premiere of Manual Cinema’s Christmas Carol took place on December 3, 2020 live from Manual Cinema’s studios in Chicago. The company went on to perform the show, all in a carefully controlled, socially distanced setting, and stream it live more than 20 times during its debut run.
Manual Cinema’s A Christmas Carol is adapted from the novel by Charles Dickens and written by the Manual Cinema Artistic Directors: Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace, Ben Kauffman, Julia Miller and Kyle Vegter. Cast members are Lizi Breit, puppeteer; Sarah Fornace, puppeteer; Ben Kauffman, guitar, piano, lead vocals; N. LaQuis Harkins, Aunt Trudy/puppeteer; Julia Miller, puppeteer; and Kyle Vegter, cello, keys and vocals. The production team is Drew Dir, storyboards; Ben Kauffman and Kyle Vegter, original music and sound design; Drew Dir, puppet design; Lizi Breit and Sarah Fornace, puppet build assistants; Drew Dir, additional puppetry; Maddy Low, costume design; Julia Miller and Kyle Vegter, set design; Andrew Morgan, Trudy lighting design; Mike Usrey, technical director and sound engineer; Shelby Sparkles, stage manager; Ben Kauffman, streaming and UX; and Julia Miller, production manager.
Content warning: this production includes themes of loss and grief related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Scrooge and Marley
More about Manual Cinema
“Chicagoans of the Year: Directors of Manual Cinema have created a whole new art form” - Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
“This Chicago troupe is conjuring phantasms to die for…” -Ben Brantley, New York Times
The five founders and co-artistic directors of Manual Cinema are (standing, from left) Kyle Vegter, Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace, (front, from left) Julia Miller and Ben Kauffman.
Manual Cinema is an Emmy Award winning performance collective, design studio, and film/video production company founded in 2010 by Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace, Ben Kauffman, Julia Miller, and Kyle Vegter. Manual Cinema combines handmade shadow puppetry, cinematic techniques, and innovative sound and music to create immersive stories for stage and screen.
Using vintage overhead projectors, multiple screens, puppets, actors, live feed cameras, multi-channel sound design, and a live music ensemble, Manual Cinema transforms the experience of attending the cinema and imbues it with liveness, ingenuity, and theatricality.
The company was an awarded an Emmy in 2017 for The Forger, a video created for The New York Times and named Chicago Artists of the Year in 2018 by the Chicago Tribune. Their shadow puppet animations are featured in the 2021 hit film remake of Candyman, directed by Nia DaCosta and produced by Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions.
In January 2021, Manual Cinema premiered a new virtual adaptation of two Mo Willems’ children’s books, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The world premiere live production, Manual Cinema Presents: Leonardo! A Wonderful Show about a Terrible Monster, is set to debut at Chicago Children’s Theatre in January 2022.
For more information, visit manualcinema.com, follow the company on Facebook at facebook.com/manualcinema, on Instagram at instagram.com/manual_cinema and on Twitter @ManualCinema.