Blue Jeans Theatre, a new queer theatre collective in Calgary, is gearing up for their first-ever production, Christmas Carol: A Drag Story. This adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic Christmas tale showcases all your favourite characters with a modern-day twist, while keeping the time-honoured elements of magic and joy. The show will run from December 16th through to and including December 23rd, 2020. Given our Covid-19 reality this will be a virtual production. Tickets for the online run can be found at https://christmascaroladragstory.bpt.me.
Blue Jeans Theatre is a newly founded queer theatre collective headed by Shannon Murphy and Kristy Benz. The two have compiled an incredible cast to bring this show to life, who audiences will likely recognize from past productions by Handsome Alice, Alberta Theatre Projects, and Theatre Calgary. For this show Blue Jeans Theatre is also extremely lucky to have the technical direction of Graham Kingsley, who worked on this summer’s virtual production of Shakespeare by the Bow’s Romeo and Juliet. With an almost entirely LGBTQA2SI+ cast and crew, the team is thrilled to be bringing queer content to Calgary stages – and screens.
“The concept of Christmas Carol: A Drag Story came out of a conversation with my mother. We were talking about the type of art we were consuming during quarantine: what was bringing us comfort. We started talking about Queer Eye and RuPaul’s Drag Race, how these shows provided a sense of belonging and nurturing while at the same time provided excitement over self-discovery. I’ve always had a special spot for Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and started seeing parallels between what is happening in Alberta and Scrooge’s journey. I saw an opportunity to bring a perspective into the story that isn’t often told; where do queer people go on Christmas? In Alberta we have a youth homelessness problem and 40% of homeless youth are from the LGBTQA2SI+ community. I saw a need for this show, a need that has been prevalent for many years in this community and a need to reveal other sides of the Calgary story.”
~director and playwright Shannon Murphy
Blue Jeans Theatre creates work aimed at bringing community together, making theatre accessible to the public, spreading joy and acceptance, and providing opportunities for queer artists.
