by Noella Noelophile®
Anthony Adu, Geoff Elliott (center)
and Ensemble
Photo by Abe Portillo
Uh-oh.
Tickets to A Noise Within’s interpretation of A Christmas Carol are selling out faster than Old Scrooge running to bar the door against unwelcome ghosts!
This is the 13th year of the imaginative production, adapted for the stage by Geoff Elliott from Dickens’ beloved classic. With original music by Robert Oriol and not a single line of the original work adapted or changed, no wonder Pasadena-based classic theatre company A Noise Within has such a hit on their hands.
Geoff Elliott, Jack Zubieta, Analisa Idalia
Photo by Abe Portillo
While this weekend’s matinees are showing “sold out”, A Noise Within’s website shows limited seats still available for this evening’s performance, Saturday, December 6th, at 7 pm. This is “Teen Night”, a special night for patrons ages 13 through 13 – 19, who are invited to come to the theatre at 6 pm and hang out with the ANW Teen Council, before the performance, for special events and free snacks.
Then, limited seats are showing available for next weekend, Thursday, December 11th, through Sunday, the 14th, and the following Thursday through Sunday. Here’s the link for information.
Geoff Elliott as Scrooge and Riley Shanahan as Marley
Photo by Abe Portillo
But…”I am here…to warn you…”
Were Marley’s ghost currently around, though, he might issue a stern admonition.
Evening performances on December 19th and 20th warn, “Book now!”, as do December 23rd and their closing-night matinee on Christmas Eve. We don’t want Christmas Future 2025 to include missing out on tickets for these dates!
Especially since they include increased accessibility to patrons.
GalaPro closed captioning, courtesy of the Perenchio Foundation, will be available during the December 20th and 21st matinees at 2 pm.
And if you saw A Christmas Carol at ANW in 2024, don’t expect it to be the same this year.
Center: Amber Liekhus and Kasey Mahaffy
Cratchit children, clockwise from left:
Brooklyn Bao, Brendan Burgos, Micah Lanfer,
Stella Bullock and Dorothy Smith
Photo by Abe Portillo
Co-Artistic Directors Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott direct the show, and Geoff, this year, shares the role of Scrooge with Henri Lubatti. And no two annual productions of Carol are ever identical.
“It’s amazing, really, the discovery that we could stay with something this long and still love it, still continue to find new depths every year,” says Geoff, in a recent email.
“There’s something about this story’s enduring humanity that keeps inspiring us.”
“It’s such a joyous experience to return to A Christmas Carol annually,” adds Julia.
“It reminds us of the power of community, compassion and transformation, the very things the holidays are meant to celebrate.”
Trisha Miller and Geoff Elliott
Photo by Abe Portillo
The show itself is also highly reflective of the mission of nonprofit A Noise Within. Through classic theatre productions, their goal, as stated on their website, is “to enrich our community by embracing universal human experiences, expanding personal awareness, and challenging individual perspectives.”
With that in mind, should you be stuck for a special Christmas gift for a fellow theatre enthusiast, you might like to consider a gift certificate to ANW. They offer certificates for individual performances as well as season passes, and their upcoming 2026 shows include Shakespeare’s Richard III and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Eugene Ionesco’s Exit the King.
Geoff Elliott
Photo by Abe Portillo
Even Old Scrooge couldn’t find any “humbug” in a gift like that.