The best children’s shows place a high premium on accessibility, unlike the opera or traffic court. Rustle up some kid-friendly fun with this GrouponLive deal to see Wild Swan Theater’s production of A Christmas Carol at Towsley Auditorium on the Washtenaw Community College campus. The box office opens one hour before showtime. Choose between the following seating options:

• For $17, you get general admission for two (a $35 value).
• For $29, you get general admission for four (a $65 value).<p>

Choose from the following showtimes:

• Thursday, December 6, at 10 a.m.
• Thursday, December 6, at 12:30 p.m.
• Friday, December 7, at 12:30 p.m.
• Sunday, December 9, at 2 p.m.
• Sunday, December 9, at 4 p.m.<p>

In Charles Dickens’s timeless Yuletide ghost story, an inveterate miser discovers there is more to the holiday season than making up words like “humbug.” It’s Christmas Eve and Ebenezer Scrooge thinks that his sole concession to the spirit of generosity—grudgingly giving his long-suffering clerk Bob Cratchit tomorrow off with pay—will be the day’s only unpleasant event. But that’s before the shade of his deceased partner, Jacob Marley, drops by wearing a preview of the chains that Scrooge himself has forged through a lifetime of greed. Three other spirits soon follow and whisk Scrooge on a journey through time, where he reflects on a love lost with the Ghost of Christmas Past, peeks in on the present-day poverty—and good cheer—of the Cratchit house with the Ghost of Christmas Present, and quakes before the horror of dying alone and unloved with the Ghost of Christmas Future. Like most high-school calculus tests, it all ends up being a dream, giving Scrooge one last chance to redeem himself and save Tiny Tim. The performance engages youngsters and adults alike with a dynamic cast and an original score penned by Tom Schnauber, a composer whose musical arrangements have added depth to various Wild Swan shows as well as stage productions by Toledo University and Emmanuel College.

Source Material

A Christmas Carol was first published in 1843 to instant critical acclaim, and has since been adapted into hundreds of versions that include musicals, modernized retellings, parodies, and fanciful steampunk re-imaginings. No matter the setting or the number of gears on Scrooge’s hat, Dickens’s playful sense of language survives in such lines as “There’s more of gravy than the grave about you, whatever you are!” The same goes for the powerful visuals of his prose: “A crutch without an owner, carefully preserved,” and the starvelings beneath Christmas Present’s robes, a harsh rebuke to anyone who writes off the “surplus population” without understanding “What the surplus is, and Where it is.” Dickens’s themes of mortality, charity, and hope for humanity have become a cherished seasonal refrain for millions of families—and as much a part of the holidays as eating the Christmas tree.