Tickets on sale now for the World Premiere of ESTELLA SCROOGE online

Producers Michael Jackowitz of Witzend Productions, David Bryant and Michael Alden, in partnership with Streaming Musicals, are pleased to herald the arrival of a new holiday musical tradition with the World Premiere of Estella Scrooge: A Christmas Carol with a Twist. Estella Scrooge premiered on 27 November 2020 at EstellaScrooge.com, and distribution in Australia is assisted by John Frost and the Gordon Frost Organisation.

Tickets (from $29.99) are on sale now at Streaming Musicals for the virtual musical, which was planned and digitally captured entirely during the pandemic, utilizing cutting-edge technology. The fully-realized production, a dazzlingly cinematic musical theatre adventure, was filmed using green screen while employing strict social distancing practices, with hundreds of images, animations and digital environments blended in post-production with the footage of the actors to bring the story magically to life.

Estella Scrooge features a book by Tony Award winner John Caird (Les Misérables, Nicholas Nickleby) and Tony Award nominee Paul Gordon (Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice), music and lyrics by Gordon and direction by Caird.

A modern day take on Charles Dickens’ beloved 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, Estella Scrooge also wittily incorporates characters and plot lines from Dickens’ other great novels, Great Expectations, Little Dorrit and Bleak House, among others.

Betsy Wolfe (Waitress) stars as Estella Scrooge, a descendent of her famous great great great great grandfather Ebenezer. Clifton Duncan (The Play That Goes Wrong) stars as Philip ‘Pip’ Nickleby. 2020 Tony Award nominee Lauren Patten (Jagged Little Pill) stars as Dawkins. The production also stars Tony Award nominees Patrick Page (Hadestown) as Mr. Merdle, Carolee Carmello (Parade) as Marla Havisham and Danny Burstein (2020 Tony Award Nominee, Moulin Rouge!) as Ebenezer Scrooge.

Estella Scrooge (Wolfe) is a young Wall Street tycoon with a penchant for foreclosing. A hotelier in her hometown of Pickwick, Ohio has defaulted on his mortgage and Estella fancies the idea of lowering the boom personally. Arriving at Harthouse on Christmas Eve, Estella discovers that the defaulting party is her childhood sweetheart, Pip Nickleby (Duncan). A good and generous soul, Pip has transformed the property into a refuge for the sick, dispossessed and homeless. A freak snowstorm forces Estella to take refuge. That night, just as it happened to her ancestor Ebenezer, she is haunted by three visitations…and oh, what uninvited houseguests they are!

Estella Scrooge was developed in part at Rhinebeck Writers Retreat with developmental productions at Rubicon Theatre Company (Karyl Lynn Burns and James O’Neil, Artistic Directors).

Tickets (from $29.99) are on sale now at Streaming Musicals for the virtual musical.

Image: Danny Burstein as Ebenezer Scrooge, Betsy Wolfe as Estella Scrooge in ESTELLA SCROOGE: A Christmas Carol with a Twist. © Tyler Milliron