Enjoy this interview with Mark Shanahan, Westport Country Playhouse artistic director, and playwright / director of A Sherlock Carol, playing Dec. 17 – 22.
Mark’s answers excerpted from a recent interview by The Virginia Stage Company.
WCP: What’s the idea behind this mash-up of two classics?
MARK: A Sherlock Carol is a direct sequel to my own version of A Christmas Carol, called A Merry Little Christmas Carol*, mixing the wonderful characters of Arthur Conan Doyle with those created by Dickens. Of course, this tale also had to be a classic mystery! It is, after all, a Sherlock Holmes play. And, the stories echo each other. The famous opening line of A Christmas Carol is “Marley was dead, to begin with.” It’s certainly one of the best opening lines in all of literature and serves as the inspiration for opening line of A Sherlock Carol: “Moriarty was dead, to begin with!”
WCP: So we pick up years after A Christmas Carol ends?
MARK: In A Sherlock Carol, we revisit Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Martha Cratchit, The Fezziwigs, Mrs. Dilber, and others from A Christmas Carol and see how they all turned out after the events of Dickens’ tale. Both Sherlock Holmes and Ebenezer Scrooge are so beloved, and audiences have strong expectations about who they are. A Sherlock Carol depicts how they evolved over time.
WCP: How does Sherlock Holmes find himself in a ghost story?
MARK: With A Sherlock Carol, it was particularly intriguing to explore Sherlock’s skepticism of the supernatural. How does a character like Sherlock, who doesn’t believe in ghosts, reconcile with a story that is perhaps the most famous ghost story of all time? The plot examines how Sherlock Holmes, a character so grounded in logic and reason, responds to the mystical world of Scrooge.
WCP: What inspired you to write this adaptation?
MARK: Ever since I was a boy, I’ve always loved the Holmes books, and the idea of weaving Doyle’s only Christmas-themed Holmes story, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, into Dickens’ world seemed like a natural fit. It allowed me to imagine a continuation of A Christmas Carol, in which Sherlock Holmes steps into a mystery deeply rooted in the themes of redemption and transformation central to the story of Ebenezer Scrooge. I’ve often said that writing A Sherlock Carol felt like inviting two sets of friends from different social circles to the same dinner party and hoping like heck they’d get along. I’m pleased to say they do!
WCP: A Sherlock Carol is a hot ticket, right?
MARK: A Sherlock Carol premiered Off-Broadway in 2021 and was nominated for a 2022 Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best New Play and selected as a “Critics’ Pick” by The New York Times. I had great producers and we revived the show in New York for a second year, and then opened the production in London as well. It now enters its third year in London, as well as having productions at numerous theatres around the United States and abroad. This December, there are 25 productions of the show running. What started as an Off-Broadway hit is now selling out theatres across the US and even in England. But Westport Country Playhouse’s is the ONLY production with the ORIGINAL CAST! The game is afoot. God bless us everyone!
CLICK HERE or on the the graphics above to read Mark’s full bio.
*Westport Country Playhouse’s Radio Theatre production of A Merry Little Christmas Carol is on the Playhouse YouTube channel HERE.
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