A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol at Spencer Theatre At Kansas City Repertory Theatre

Ebenezer Scrooge wants his gold counted, his door bolted and every man's hand out of his pocket—but three spirits have other plans for his Christmas Eve. Kansas City Repertory Theatre's production brings Charles Dickens's ghost story to the Spencer Theatre stage, where Mark Robbins embodies the skinflint whose name became shorthand for cold-hearted greed. This isn't a parable wrapped in velvet; it's a haunting built on Scrooge's sharp refusals, his snarled contempt for charity and the supernatural reckoning that follows.

The spirits don't arrive gently. Christmas Past, Present and Future drag Scrooge through visions designed to crack his defenses: the Cratchit family's threadbare joy around Tiny Tim, Fezziwig's open-hearted revelry and the chilling glimpse of what awaits a man who dies unmourned. Adapted by Jason Chanos and Stuart Carden, directed by Darrington Clark, this telling preserves the story's eerie backbone—a Victorian morality tale where the supernatural intrudes on a locked heart.

Between hauntings, the production folds in Candlelight Carol, a moment of quiet radiance that deepens the contrast between Scrooge's isolation and the warmth he's rejected. It's a local staging that honors both Dickens's darkness and the transformation hard-won by morning, when a miser discovers generosity isn't weakness but the rarest courage. Secure your seat at Spencer Theatre and let Kansas City Repertory Theatre remind you why this ghost story endures.