News

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Arts & Issues will offer a special twist to the holiday season by presenting a live, world-premiere online event created for audiences of all ages, “Christmas Carol.” Manual Cinema, the interdisciplinary theater company, performs Charles Dickens’ holiday classic as a visually inventive adaptation at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 10. 

Manual Cinema’s “Christmas Carol,” which runs one hour in length, will be told with hundreds of paper puppets, miniatures, silhouettes, and a live original score in an imaginative re-invention of a cherished holiday tradition. 

Tickets are $15 and available at siueconnect.org/pages/special-events-pages/manual-cinema-christmas-carol. The buyer will receive a link for the presentation. 

An avowed holiday skeptic, Aunt Trudy has been recruited to channel her late husband Joe’s famous Christmas cheer. From the isolation of her studio apartment, she reconstructs his annual Christmas Carol puppet show over a Zoom call, while the family celebrates Christmas Eve under lockdown. But as Trudy becomes more absorbed in her own version of the story, the puppets take on lives of their own, and the family’s call transforms into a stunning cinematic adaptation of Dickens’s classic ghost story. 

“There’s a lot of online performing arts content out there, but it’s difficult to translate something that should be live onto a screen,” said Arts & Issues Director Grant Andree. “I was looking for something creative and different, and Manual Cinema was looking for partners to commission something new. It’s a good fit for the time we find ourselves in. Manual Cinema is always innovative and entertaining.” 

Manual Cinema’s “Christmas Carol” was co-commissioned by Arts and Issues and is sponsored by the SIUE Alumni Association, Commerce Bank and the SIUE Foundation. This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

 Arts & Issues is tied to the academic mission of the University. For 36 years, the series has presented some of the world’s finest performing artists and showcased speakers from across the spectrum in areas such as science, history, literature and politics. The program also offers unique opportunities for students, faculty, staff and the community to engage with these performers and speakers through master classes and special sessions.  

Photo:
Arts & Issues presents Manual Cinema’s “Christmas Carol.”