While listening to the Christmas song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”, have you ever wondered about the line “…and scary ghost stories?” It’s because for generations of old there was a tradition of telling ghostly tales by candlelight at Christmas, that time of year where the days grow short and the nights long, and the world of the living and the dead were thought to be at their closest point.

Christmas Spirits is a new play that hopes to continue that old tradition by presenting four ghost stories adapted for the stage from masters of the genre: Charles Dickens, M.R. James, Marjorie Bowen, and E.F. Benson. In Charles Dickens’ The Signal-Man, a lonely railway worker is haunted by a spectre whose appearances are a harbinger of danger; Martin’s Close by M.R. James takes place at a murder trial where the proceedings are influenced from beyond the grave; Marjorie Bowen’s The Crown Derby Plate is about the lengths one goes to protect their earthly possessions; and finally How Fear Departed the Long Gallery by E.F. Benson features a pair of malevolent ghosts that bring death either speedily or terribly – or both! – to anyone unlucky enough to see them.

If you want your Christmas to have a little extra chill this year, pull up a chair by the fire, and join POST MORTEM PLAYERS and the OLD COURTHOUSE THEATRE for an evening of ghoulish delight (and a fright or two as well). Scrooge shouldn’t be the only one visited by spirits this year!

CHRISTMAS SPIRITS by Chris Stonnell
Directed by Matthew Monté and Gray Rodgers

Performances: December 15-17 @ 7:30 pm & December 18 @ 2:30 pm.

Location: The Blackbox Theatre at Old Courthouse Theatre (47 Spring St. NW Concord, 28025).

*Please note, the Blackbox Theatre is only accessible by stairs.