Manual Cinema: A Christmas Carol

Told with hundreds of paper puppets, miniatures, silhouettes, and a live original score, Manual Cinema’s A Christmas Carol is an imaginative reinvention of a cherished holiday tradition. The show will stream eight times from Saturday through Dec. 19. 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 a life of their own, and the family’s call transforms into a stunning retelling of Dickens’ timeless ghost story.