Last updated: October 30, 2018

'A Christmas Carol' stage-play script, music & sound effects

Perfect for the 2018 Christmas season!

Every Christmas, people across the world license my 'Carol' script and music and sound effects cues for productions ranging from broadcasts to regional theaters, schools and even private parties. There have been hundreds of performances of this script since 1997. Here is information about the play, the cast, music and sound effects. The script is delivered as PDF file via e-mail. Music and sound effects can be downloaded as MP3 files.

ALSO: If the stage-play version is beyond your production capabilities, see my Radio play version of 'Christmas Carol'. The live radio play on-stage version is much simpler to produce since it doesn't require sets, costumes, or memorization, yet still pleases theater audiences who get a kick out of seeing the sound effects artists create the sound of doors, horses, howling phantoms, thunder, etc.

I also offer a shorter, simpler version 'staged-reading version of 'Christmas Carol' which can be inexpensively done by families at home, as a fundraiser, or office party. See 'Christmas Carol' as family/staged-reading version for more information.

TO ORDER: Contact me at and tell me about your intended production. I deliver the script via e-mail as a PDF file, and the pre-recorded music cues and pre-recorded sound effects tracks can be downloaded as MP3 files. The live sound effects (bells, plates, footsteps, etc.) are up to you to assemble, but my script has a "cookbook" section explaining how to make each sound using items you can find in your town.

Other RuyaSonic Plays, Sound Effects and Music Tracks available for Holiday shows

•  "Christmas Carol" pre-recorded music and sound effects tracks for any version of the story
•  Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" as family/staged-reading version 
•  Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" radio drama (on-stage or broadcast)
•  Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" one-man show (on-stage or broadcast)
•  "The Nativity Play" stage-play
•  "The Nativity Play" radio drama (on-stage)
•  "The Nativity Play" Christmas Pageant For churches seeking a simple presentation of narration and songs
•  "The Nativity Play" family versions For home-productions
•  "Auntie Scrooge - A BACKWARDS Christmas Carol" comedy radio drama
•  "It's a Wonderful Life!" radio drama (on-stage)
•  "It's a Wonderful Life!" (stage-play)
•  "Wonderful Life" pre-recorded music and sound effects tracks for any version of the story
•  "The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow" radio drama (on-stage)
•  "The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow" stage-play
•  Other ready-for-production radio drama scripts

'A Christmas Carol' is Tony Palermo's very faithful stage-play adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic story of  Christmas, memory, and redemption. The dialogue is verbatim Dickens. This adaptation has been performed by professional theaters, community theatre troupes, colleges, churches, high schools and elementary students around the world.

The full stage-play runs one hour--without intermission--but there is a natural place to insert one, just after Scrooge returns from the visit with the First Spirit. But there are two versions of this show--the full-story one-hour version, and a simpler, half-hour version, trimmed for tight time-slot limits.

Changes of gender for characters is permitted as is trimming lines and even whole scenes. While the show makes use of pre-recorded music for scene transitions and as dramatic underscoring, this is not a Broadway-style musical. However, it is possible to employ a choir to serve within scenes as the poor child carolers dispelled by Scrooge and as Marley's colleagues, the moaning phantoms. You can choose to insert carolers at Nephew Fred's parties, the Cratchit household and elsewhere.