Anthony Lawton as the Storyteller, photo by Mark Garvin
(PHILADELPHIA, PA) -- Lantern Theater Company continues its 2025/26 season with a remount of its original adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, commissioned and developed through the Lantern's New Play Program and co-created by Philadelphia theater artists Anthony Lawton, Christopher Colucci, and Thom Weaver. The production runs from December 13-28, 2025, at St. Stephen’s Theater in Center City Philadelphia.
In this wonderfully clear and direct telling of Dickens’ beloved novella, acclaimed playwright and actor Anthony Lawton brings the story boldly to life with drama and frankness, in a manner Dickens himself would recognize from his dramatic readings during his own lifetime. Lawton’s compelling solo performance brings each character to life in this timeless story of a miser’s miraculous redemption from a life of bitterness, greed, and isolation.
Hailed by The Wall Street Journal as “electrifying” and by The Philadelphia Inquirer as “a 95-minute masterpiece... brilliantly performed and staged,” Back by popular demand for its seventh year, Lawton’s heartwarming adaptation has captured the hearts of theater critics and audiences alike, inspiring a new Philadelphia holiday tradition.
For audience members who prefer to watch from home, the Lantern will also stream a fully designed and edited film version of A Christmas Carol from December 13, 2025, through January 5, 2026.
Written in 1843, Dickens’ holiday classic is famous for its ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future who help Scrooge see the error of his ways. But Dickens originally envisioned A Christmas Carol as a social justice pamphlet denouncing child labor and poverty entitled An Appeal to the People of England, on behalf of the Poor Man’s Child. England in the 1840s was a time of rapid industrialization, massive population growth, and widening gulfs between the rich and the poor. Throughout his life, Dickens was highly sensitive to and outspoken about social issues, particularly those involving children and economic inequality.
“There are some stories so woven into the mythos of a culture that it seems impossible to imagine a time before they existed,” said Lantern Artistic Director Charles McMahon. “A Christmas Carol is one of those stories. Stripped of holiday clichés, it is a devastating story, laying bare all the ugly forces that separate and isolate human beings from one another, turning life into a solitary torment. It is also a joyous story of one person’s release from that torment just when it seems about to clasp him in its grip for all time. We are thrilled to again present this original adaption of A Christmas Carol – a unique version in which you will hear the simple power of the words and the characters told in a clear and simple human voice.”
Lantern Theater Company will delve deeper into the themes of A Christmas Carol on its Lantern Searchlight blog, available online at lanterntheater.org/searchlight. Published articles explore the world of Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol in the nexus between Victorian economics and literature, the fascinating circumstances surrounding the writing of this holiday classic, and more.
Tickets for the stage production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol are $32 – $40 and are available online at www.lanterntheater.org or by calling the Lantern Box Office at (215) 829-0395. Performances will take place at St. Stephen’s Theater, located at 10th & Ludlow Streets in Center City Philadelphia. Tickets for the streaming version of A Christmas Carol are $40 per household/device and will be available at www.lanterntheater.org beginning December 13, 2025.
About the Lantern Artists
Anthony Lawton (Co-Creator and the Storyteller) shows his mastery of theatrical narrative as he plays all of A Christmas Carol’s roles in this solo tour de force performance. Lawton is well known to Philadelphia audiences for his original works for the stage – including The Foocy, which had its world premiere production at the Lantern in 2005 and earned five Barrymore nominations including Best New Play, and The Light Princess, which premiered at Arden Theatre Company and earned eight 2017 Barrymore nominations including Best New Play and two wins. Lawton has also created original adaptations of Shel Silverstein’s The Devil and Billy Markham and C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce, which he has performed at the Lantern and across the U.S. under the aegis of his Mirror Theatre Company, earning him praise from Philadelphia City Paper as the city’s “Best One-Man Theatre.”
As an actor, Lawton’s local and regional stage credits include numerous stage and digital productions with the Lantern, most recently as the title role in Macbeth, Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing, Teddy in Faith Healer (Barrymore winner), James Joyce in Travesties, Thomas Cromwell in A Man for All Seasons, Dr. Rieux in The Plague, Mr. Rice in Molly Sweeney, and the title role in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. His work at other theaters includes 1812 Productions, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Arden Theatre Company, Walnut Street Theatre, The Wilma Theater, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, and theaters across the U.S. His film and television credits include Unbreakable, Invincible, Law Abiding Citizen, Silver Linings Playbook, Hack, and Cold Case. Lawton holds a BA in Great Books from the University of Notre Dame and an MFA in Acting from Temple University.
Christopher Colucci (Co-Creator and Sound Designer) is an eight-time Barrymore Award-winning sound designer, composer, and musician whose 40+ Lantern credits include the currently running Macbeth and recent productions of The Real Thing, The 39 Steps, The Comedy of Errors, Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Tartuffe, Twelfth Night, Travesties, and A Man for All Seasons. Other recent sound design work includes Spinner at Delaware Theatre Company; Rift, or White Lies at InterAct Theatre Company; Square Go! with Inis Nua and Tiny Dynamite; and upcoming productions of Sherlock Holmes: The Great Detective and A Delicate Balance at Walnut Street Theatre. Colucci holds a BA in Philosophy and Theology from Eastern University and an MA in Philosophy from Western Kentucky University.
Thom Weaver (Co-Creator and Scenic/Lighting Designer) is an award-winning designer whose work has been honored with six Barrymore Awards, two Jeff Awards, and two AUDELCO Awards. His work has been seen locally at the Lantern, The Wilma Theater, Arden Theatre Company, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Theatre Exile, New Paradise Laboratories, and Walnut Street Theatre, and regionally at NYSF/The Public Theater, Roundabout Theatre Company, Primary Stages, Signature Theatre (NY), Center Stage, Huntington Theatre Company, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Syracuse Stage, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Shakespeare Theatre, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Folger Theatre, Cleveland Play House, Roundhouse Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Hangar Theatre, Spoleto Festival, City Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theater, and Yale Repertory Theatre. He is also co-founder of Die-Cast with Brenna Geffers and a member of Wingspace, an organization of theater artists that fosters conversations on design, strengthening community, and furthering activism in the field. Weaver holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.
Founded in 1994 and now in its 32nd season, Lantern Theater Company’s mission is to produce plays that investigate and illuminate what is essential in the human spirit and the spirit of the times. The Lantern serves the Greater Philadelphia region with award-winning productions and education programming, notably partnering with middle schools and high schools in the Philadelphia School District to provide in-classroom residencies in support of curricular learning. The Lantern became a national leader in streaming theater during the Covid health crisis, producing ten fully designed plays that were created and filmed in the company’s resident home at St. Stephen’s Theater, garnering coverage in national media including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and reaching more than 30,000 people in 15 countries and all 50 states.
Following Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the Lantern’s 2025/26 season will continue with the Philadelphia premiere of Blues for an Alabama Sky, Pearl Cleage’s mesmerizing and inventive drama of the Harlem Renaissance, directed by Brett Ashley Robinson; and the Philadelphia premiere of Franklinland, Lloyd Suh’s new play about Benjamin Franklin, directed by Charles McMahon and just in time to celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday in 2026.
