{"id":2452477,"date":"2019-12-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-21T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=317750"},"modified":"2019-12-21T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-21T07:00:00","slug":"a-fresh-take-on-twas-the-night-before-christmas-at-the-wheeler-opera-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/a-fresh-take-on-twas-the-night-before-christmas-at-the-wheeler-opera-house\/","title":{"rendered":"A fresh take on \u2018Twas the Night Before Christmas\u2019 at the Wheeler Opera House"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The mouse in Clement Moore\u2019s 1823 poem \u201cTwas the Night Before Christmas\u201d isn\u2019t stirring, of course, but the one in Ken Ludwig\u2019s stage update of the holiday classic is wide awake.<\/p>\n

Ludwig, the famed Broadway playwright behind \u201cCrazy for You,\u201d \u201cLend Me a Tenor\u201d and \u201cMoon Over Buffalo,\u201d used the old tale of a St. Nicholas visit as a jumping-off point for his 2011 reboot, in which the mouse and a young girl find new Christmas Eve hijinks in the old tale.<\/p>\n

A new version of Ludwig\u2019s play with music is now on national tour that launched in North Carolina last month. It comes to Aspen\u2019s Wheeler Opera House on Sunday and then concludes with stops in Beaver Creek and Denver.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is the master of American farce,\u201d said director Tim Drucker, who oversaw the new touring production, enlisting five actors playing multiple parts. \u201cSo there is a lot of slapstick.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this version, the mouse and his playmate \u201cgo on a \u2018Princess Bride\u2019-esque adventure to the North Pole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drucker updated the 2011 play for a 2019 audience, adding a host of fresh pop culture references and new music.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was pulling references from across the board to make it something new that would also feel familiar, and something parents can enjoy as much as kids,\u201d Drucker said.<\/p>\n

So a swordfight in the play sends up \u201cStar Wars\u201d and \u201cKill Bill,\u201d for instance, and the style of a hip-hop musical number end up, in Drucker\u2019s words, with a \u201cBaby Shark meets Lizzo\u201d sound.<\/p>\n

Drucker, who specializes in musical and comedy productions, is having a big holiday season. Along with launching the national tour of \u201cTwas the Night Before Christmas,\u201d he also recently opened a new off-Broadway musical parody of \u201cLove Actually.\u201d<\/p>\n

Silly as the action on-stage may be, Drucker takes the role of creating theater for young audiences quite seriously.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel a great responsibility in giving kids what may be their first experience with live theater,\u201d he said. \u201cHopefully it\u2019s important for developing minds and using the rules of theater so they understand what\u2019s special about this versus looking at a screen.\u201d<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The mouse in Clement Moore\u2019s 1823 poem \u201cTwas the Night Before Christmas\u201d isn\u2019t stirring, of course, but the one in Ken Ludwig\u2019s stage update of the holiday classic is wide awake. Ludwig, the famed Broadway playwright behind \u201cCrazy for You,\u201d \u201cLend Me a Tenor\u201d and \u201cMoon Over Buffalo,\u201d used the old tale of a St. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2452477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 01:12:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2452477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2452477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2452477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2452477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}