Humbug High: A Contemporary Christmas Carol

As December unfolds its festive charm, our focus turns to a collection of plays crafted to bring holiday magic to your stage or classroom. From heartwarming tales to whimsical narratives, these scripts promise to capture the joy and spirit of the season. So bundle up and check out our December reading list. Let these plays be the delightful touch that elevates the season, transforming it into a memorable experience.

September has arrived and it's time to hit the books - but with a twist! This month, we're showcasing a wonderful assortment of plays, all set within the hallowed halls of education. It's time to build your September reading list! So grab a cup of tea, find your favourite reading spot, and cozy up with these fantastic perusal plays. Celebrate these plays on the stage or in the classroom!

Time for a Tfolk Top Plays List For….Building a Theatre Program. You’ve had a large group of seniors graduate. You’re starting at a new school that doesn’t have a theatre program You’re taking over a program that needs some serious love. What plays should you choose to build your program? Click the link and you’ll be taken to the webpage for each play. There you’ll get the details and read sample pages. All the best with your search – and with building your program! Choose a play with a familiar link that people know. Use the familiar as your hook.

Everyone can find the true meaning of Christmas in their heart. In Humbug High: A Contemporary Christmas Carol by Lindsay Price, it only takes a couple of ghosts and a dead lunch lady. Eddie Scrooge is 17 years old. He hates his parents and his classmates. His only goal in life is to make money and keep his heart ice-cold. He carries his own low temperature always about him and doesn’t thaw one degree at Christmas. He is on his way to becoming a miserly, miserable, tight-fisted hand to the grindstone, until one Christmas season he is taken on a journey by Madge, the lunch lady, and the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future. Scrooge is about to meet the errors of his ways face-to-face. The drama team at Salem High School in Salem, Ohio decked their halls with their production of Humbug High. Not a ‘Bah, Humbug’ was in sight as they brought the story of a teenage Scrooge to life: “The kids enjoyed doing the show.”

Episode 193: Drama Teachers: How do you run an effective Q and A session? In the 21st century, the world is at our fingertips. That means your students can interact with the playwright of their next play through Skype, do a Google Hangout with a professional actor, or talk to a set designer on Facebook Live. But how do you run a question and answer session that’s valuable for your students and gets the most out of your guest? Listen in for some insight and for a Q and A in action!

Welcome to our Featured Play Spotlight. Are you ready to deck those halls? Or are you saying “Bah, humbug” to the holidays? Either way, you’re going to love Humbug High: A Contemporary Christmas Carol by Lindsay Price – a new take on the classic Dickens tale. Eddie Scrooge is 17 years old. He hates his parents and his classmates. His only goal in life is to make money and keep his heart ice-cold. He carries his own low temperature always about him and doesn’t thaw one degree at Christmas. He is on his way to becoming a miserly, miserable, tight-fisted hand to the grindstone, until one Christmas season he is taken on a journey by Madge, the lunch lady, and the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future. Scrooge is about to meet the errors of his ways face-to-face. Let’s hear from the author! 1. Why did you write this play? Not only is adaptation my favourite form of writing, A Christmas Carol is one of my favourite stories. It’s such a universal tale of humanity, which is the reason it’s been transformed so many times over the years. The way Dickens writes characters is so vivid it was a treat to transform them into modern versions. The story tells itself so it’s important to have strong unique characters. *2. Describe the theme in one or two sentences. * Everyone can find the true meaning of Christmas in their heart. Sometimes it takes a couple of ghosts and a dead lunch lady. *3. What’s the most important visual for you in this play? * When Madge, the dead lunch lady and Eddie’s only friend appears as a ghost covered in a chain of her own making made of pots, pans, and soup ladles. She tells him the truth of what’s going to happen if he doesn’t change his ways (and pushes him to get a girlfriend). I love the mix of raising the stakes in the story and Madge’s sense of humour. *4. If you could give one piece of advice for those producing the play, what would it be? * Character, character, character. Everyone knows the story, so share it through the eyes of human beings and not actors saying lines. There’s a lot of fun to be had in the play, but the genuine journey of the characters is most important. *5. Why is this play great for student performers? * Great characters share a well known story that was written just for them. Who wouldn’t want to play Scrooge as a teenager?

Time for a Tfolk Top Ten Plays for…Holidays! The holidays are a perfect time to put on a play. And we don’t just stop at Christmas. Since the end of October is a particularly spooky time of year we’re also going to share some of our most spookiest stuff. Click the link and you’ll be taken to the webpage for each play. There you’ll get the details and read sample pages. All the best with your search! Deck the Stage Six short plays inspired by Christmas carols. Bittersweet moments. Laugh out loud comedy. And the weirdest 12 days of Christmas you’ve ever seen. The plays can be performed individually, or all together as a complete evening of entertainment. Humbug High: A Contemporary Christmas Carol A new take on the classic Dickens tale! Eddie Scrooge is 17 years old. He hates his parents and his classmates. His only goal in life is to make money and keep his heart ice-cold. This Christmas he’s about to meet the errors of his ways face-to-face. The Snow Queen Kai has been captivated by The Snow Queen. She is frozen in her heart and mind. Gerda will stop at nothing to find her sister. This is a magical theatrical adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of a sister’s love, an ice cold heart, and a fantastical journey. A great winter themed alternative to traditional Christmas fare. Christmas In July Last Year has handed off the calendar to the New Year and is ready to hit the beach. The New Year is nervous but ready for the challenge. But something goes terribly wrong. Summer starts in November, Easter’s in February and Christmas is in July! The calendar days are all in a tizzy. The First Herald Angel On the first Christmas Eve, a poor shepherd happens across a small child in the hill country about Bethlehem. To the shepherd’s surprise, the child explains she is an angel practicing to be a herald angel so she can announce the Saviour’s birth. Great for concerts or assemblies. The Bottom of the Lake Dani’s out in the middle of the woods at night, alone, without a flashlight. She meets three girls from another camp, and they tell ghost stories to pass the time. A combination of ghost stories, urban legends, teen issues, romance, absurd comedy, and film noir, all in a single play! Close Encounters of the Undead Kind Is that a werewolf at the support group? A child vampire at the front door? A zombie boyfriend? With some close encounters of the undead kind, these plays are far from typical and humdrum! The plays can be performed individually or all together for a ghoulishly delightful evening. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow This new adaptation of the Washington Irving story is excellent for large groups and suitably spooky for Halloween! Icabod Crane is new to Sleepy Hollow and seems to fit right in. But not everyone is happy to see Icabod and they prepare a ghoulish surprise for him. The Haunting of Chip Lake Lodge Four seniors arrive at a country lodge for their prom. But things go askew from the start. They show up at the wrong lodge, their car won’t start, the phone goes dead, and disco music plays inexplicably. The lodge is haunted! It all leads to a bizarre prom night no one will forget. Shuddersome: Tales of Poe Specters, ghosts and ghouls come alive in this vivid theatrical adaptation of some of Edgar Allen Poe’s best-known works. His words rise from the page like corpses from the grave. Be careful. Do you hear that tap, tap, taping? Multi-length versions of the script to fit every need. Planning on performing one of these or another Theatrefolk play? Let us know all about it with pictures and highlights – we might even feature you on our site! Click here to submit your story.

I instruct a course on Copyright for the Drama Teacher Academy and I wanted to share what I’ve learned about Public Domain material – particularly how it applies to Drama Teachers. Before I get started, I want to be clear that I’m not a lawyer and so please don’t take anything here as legal advice. This is a summary of what I’ve learned in my years as a publisher. Let’s answer the question in the headline first: What does “Public Domain” mean?A work that is “in the Public Domain” is a work that is completely free for anyone to use in any way they like. It has entered the Public Domain either because the term of the copyright expired or the work was never covered by copyright in the first place. An example of this would be the works of William Shakespeare. Nobody holds a copyright on his works and so anybody can do whatever they please with them. Publish them in a book? Sure. Perform them without royalty? Absolutely. Translate the text into “modern English?” Yes. Into Italian? Si. Write a derivative work such as Postcards from Shakespeare? I hope so, otherwise our lawyers are going to be busy. Cut them down to an hour? You bet. Shakespeare works are in the domain of the public. They are there for all of us to use, share, enjoy, build upon, be inspired by, and perform. Here are some other examples of work in the Public Domain. • Greek Drama (there are Public Domain translations available on Project Gutenberg) • Grimms’ Fairy Tales (there are Public Domain translations available on Project Gutenberg) • The works of Charles Dickens (one of the reasons that there are so many versions of A Christmas Carol available) • Gilbert and Sullivan How do you know that a work is in the Public Domain?This depends on an awful lot of things. The first question is: Where you are going to be using it? It doesn’t necessarily matter where the work originated, it matters where you’re using it. Copyright law is applied in the country of use. Modern copyright law is based on the date of the author’s death. In Canada, the work is under copyright for 50 years after the author dies. In the US, it’s 70 years after the author dies. Therefore, the works of George Bernard Shaw (who died in 1950) is in the Public Domain in Canada but is still under copyright in the US. Copyright law has changed many times and it can be tricky to navigate all the ins and outs of the various changes. Sometimes it matters when a book was first printed, sometimes it matters if it had a copyright notice, sometimes it matters if the copyright was renewed. There are some wonderful flowcharts that help with this. Remember that copyright law applies in the country in which the work is being used, not in the country in which the work originated. Make sure you’re using the proper flowchart for your country: • American flowchart http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm • Canadian Flowchart http://kaplanmyrth.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/updates-to-the-canadian-copyri/ Thankfully, copyright is simpler today. It’s automatic. It exists the second the author writes the words. It doesn’t require registration, it doesn’t require the © mark, it doesn’t require much of anything except a creative being “fixed” in a tangible way. The big caveat!Only the original work is in the Public Domain. Any creation based upon or inspired by or translated from the original work is most likely under a form of copyright protection. Postcards from Shakespeare is a fine example of this. It’s based many of Shakespeare’s plays, all of which are in the Public Domain. But the new work is protected by copyright. Project Gutenberg is a wonderful source of Public Domain translations of classic works like Molière and The Greeks. But John Barton’s The Greeks is protected by copyright. Public Domain is NOTYou know what Public Domain is, here are some things that it is not. Works posted online. The fact that a work is posted online (even by the author herself) does not place it into the Public Domain. There are hundreds of copies of Star Wars posted on the Internet. It isn’t Public Domain. It’s just heavily pirated. Anonymous works. Just because the author has used a pseudonym or is anonymous doesn’t mean that it’s free to use. It’s still protected by copyright. The term of the copyright is different for anonymous works but it’s still protected for many years. Work for which you can’t find the author or the rightsholder. Also known as orphan works. These are still protected by copyright for the same duration as mentioned above. Work released under a Creative Commons license. Creative Commons is a fabulous evolution to the world of copyright and intellectual property. It’s a very forward-thinking and open look at copyright. For that reason, many people confuse CC-licensed work as totally free to use. But CC in and of itself isn’t a license to have free reign with the work. Each work is licensed with certain terms and restrictions. A discussion of the various CC licensing schemes is well beyond the scope of this article, but suffice to say that CC licensed work is still covered by copyright. Want more?Interested in learning more? Consider joining the Drama Teacher Academy – professional development on demand for drama teachers.

Episode 70: Talking to a Playwright on SkypeWhat’s it like to talk to a playwright? In this episode Lindsay shares three different Skype sessions with three different groups. What do students want to know when they have a playwright in front of them? Listen to find out.

Lindsay and Craig spread the love for Humbug High: A Contemporary Christmas Carol.