Jefferson Mays' One-Man A Christmas Carol to Play Broadway This Holiday Season

Tony winner Jefferson Mays will bring his acclaimed one-man production of A Christmas Carol to Broadway this holiday season. Directed by Tony nominee Michael Arden, this production of the Charles Dickens classic is adapted by Mays, Arden and Susan Lyons and conceived by Arden and Dane Laffrey. A Christmas Carol will play at Broadway's Nederlander Theatre beginning on November 8 ahead of an opening night on November 21. The production will run through January 1, 2023. Tickets are now on sale.

"It's a project that's been in the back of my mind. I talked about it with my dear wife, Susan Lyons,” Mays told Broadway.com in an episode of The Broadway Show with Tamsen Fadal. “We sat down and started tinkering with the text and drew from Dickens' own performance version—he toured it around as a one-man show. My father would read A Christmas Carol in its entirety every year. Over the course of three hours, he kept us transfixed on the sofa. My mother would embody every character. I remember as a child seeing this woman, who was so familiar to me, transmogrify before my eyes. It was magic. I think it was a seminal moment for me in many ways."

Mays plays over 50 characters in this production, which had its world premiere in 2018 at Los Angeles’ Geffen Playhouse. In the winter of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, producer Hunter Arnold released a filmed version of the production as way for theaters across the country to raise money and bring the magic of live theater to people who were unable to gather in person.

Mays can currently be seen as Mayor Shinn in The Music Man. He won a 2004 Tony Award for starring I Am My Own Wife. He has additional nominations for A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder in 2014 and Oslo in 2017. Arden is a two-time Tony nominee for directing revivals of Spring Awakening in 2016 and Once on This Island in 2018.