The holiday season’s penny-pinchingest gender-swapped skinflint is back, and once again belting her stone of a heart out, in The Nocturne Theatre’s all-around fabulous reprise of last year’s Scenie-winning Best World Premiere Musical, Madame Scrooge: A Christmas Carol Musical.

With a story as ripe for annual retelling as the 181-year-old tale of a miser’s redemption, it should come as no surprise that A Christmas Carol has already inspired numerous musical adaptations (with songs composed by such luminaries as Michel Legrand, Leslie Bricusse, and Alan Menken), and Madame Scrooge is far from the first adaptation to give Ebenezer a sex change. (Susan Lucci, Cecily Tyson, and Vanessa Williams have all played him as her.)

But that doesn’t make book writer/lyricist Justin Patrick Meyer and composer Chris Thomas’s Madame Scrooge: A Christmas Carol Musical any less worthy of attention, or a return engagement at the Nocturne.

A spectacular Stephanie Hodgdon once again stars as the stingy but oh so glamorous Eleanore Scrooge, who like countless Ebenezers before her turns away a pair of social workers (Rachel Franke and Chess MacElvaine, masked as are all performers playing multiple roles) hoping for a sizable donation and a nephew (Connor Bullock’s unmasked Fred) who’s come to invite his aunt to Christmas dinner.

Worse still, she overworks and underpays her loyal clerk Bob Cratchit (Jonah Lees, also maskless), only grudgingly giving him a day off for Christmas, all of which adds up to a despotic cheapskate in dire need of being taught a lesson.

Hence the spectral visits of not only her late partner Jacob Marley (Brayden Hade) but also the ghosts of Christmas Past (Faith Berrigan), Present (MacElvaine), and Future (Troy Azuna), sent to give Eleanore one last chance for salvation.

 In other words, as far as plot is concerned, there’s nothing all that new about Madame Scrooge (or for that matter any other Christmas Carol adaptation before it).

What sets Madame Scrooge: A Christmas Carol Musical apart from its predecessors is a soaring score reminiscent of Claude-Michel Schönberg (Les Misérables) and Frank Wildhorn (Jekyll & Hyde) and a darkly atmospheric production design that ups the spookiness factor for both the audience and Eleanore Scrooge herself, a woman with a stone-cold soul in dire need of being scared back to life.

Song highlights include the hymnlike “In The Bleak Midwinter,” the gloom-and-doom-evoking power ballad “Life Isn’t Fair,” and the soaring “Content To Be Poor,” a love duet that integrates bits of “Oh Holy Night” midway through.

Tanya Cyr’s costumes (all new for 2024) are even more spectacular than they were last year, ranging from brightly colorful to deathly dark, and those she has created for Scrooge’s ghostly visitors are feats of imagination certain to either charm or terrify, in particular the colorful Christmas tree ornament that is the Ghost of Christmas Past (weirdly charming) and a Ghost Of Christmas Future (utterly terrifying), whose six skeletal hands and humongous horn poking out of its back are as creepy as ghosts appendages get.

Scenic designer Jay Michael Roberts makes ingenious use of the Nocturne’s arena stage as Justin Meyers’ lighting (based on Eric Marsh’s from last year) combines the spooky and the spectacular.

And just wait until choreographer Melissa Meyer and a top-notch song-and-dance ensemble once again treat audiences to some New Orleans swing in “It Was Only Business” and a “Fezziwig’s Feast Of Fools” reminiscent of The Hunchback of Notre Dame’s “Topsy-Turvy,” among other choreographic delights.

Leading lady Hodgdon is so charismatic and commanding as Madame Scrooge and she’s got such multi-octave power pipes that it’s no wonder she’s been invited back for 2024, there being pretty much no one else in town with a legit soprano that can soar to a sky-high hard-rock belt in an instant.

Justin Meyers returns not only to direct with panache but also to reveal his own gorgeous tenor as Eleanore’s long-lost love Bill, Lees is as charming a Cockney-accented Bob as can be, and William Morrow is equally as endearing as an American-accented Tim.

Bullock, who plays Madame Scrooge’s nephew Fred, reveals why he’s become a Nocturne favorite over the past year and the same can be said about Franke (who displays the loveliest of sopranos as Eleanore’s younger self Elle) and Hade (who makes for the scariest of Jacob Marleys, even in what looks to be a lady’s crimson evening gown).

Nolan Monsibay, Cassandra Caruso, Kate Clarke, Renee Cohen, Jullian Golden, Kasey Hentz, Nicole Alyse Nelson, dance captain Samantha Tilley, and Jewell Valentin complete the show’s multi-talented cast in multiple cameos each, their vocals expertly coached by music director Thomas.

Matt Merline is sound engineer Micah Delhauer doubles as assistant lighting designer and stage manager.

Just a year ago I was celebrating the arrival of The Nocturne Theatre owners Justin and Melissa Meyers to our Los Angeles musical theater scene and thanking them for saving the much loved Glendale Centre Theatre from the wrecking ball, and what a year it’s been for them since then.

As audiences prepare to be once again dazzled in 2025 by West Side Story, Dracula, Shrek, and Little Shop Of Horrors, Madame Scrooge: A Christmas Carol Musical brings The Nocturne Theatre’s 2024 season to a close with holiday spirit-filled pizzazz.

The Nocturne Theatre, 324 N. Orange St., Glendale. Through December 22. Thursday and Friday at 7:30, Saturday at 3:00 and 7:300, and Sundays at 2:00 and 7:00.
www.TheNocturneTheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
December 18, 2024

Tags: Charles Dickens, Chris Thomas, Justin Patrick Meyer, Los Angeles Theater Review, The Nocturne Theatre