West Philly’s Shakespeare in Clark Park goes indoors for a holiday premiere

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In “The Complete Works of Christmas (Abridged),” actress Amanda Schoonover is spending the holiday with a pre-mixed bottle of eggnog, a sparkly holiday dress, and a TV remote for skating through more than 30 Christmas movies.

“She’s got all of the things she needs to have a merry Christmas,” Schoonover said of her character, who is not named. “She’s gonna watch these movies in the hopes that they bring up the memories and the emotions that she had when she was a kid.”

The list of movies includes staples like “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “A Charlie Brown Christmas;” more obscure films like the cartoon “The Small One,” a 1978 Disney short about a donkey in Nazareth; and controversial titles like the Bruce Willis action film “Die Hard.”

“Not up for discussion,” Schoonover’s character informs the audience. “Definitely a Christmas movie.”

That list becomes self-referential when she sings a parody song involving the 2023 Eddie Murphy film “Candy Cane Lane,” in which Schoonover, herself, appeared in a minor role.

“The Complete Works of Christmas (Abridged)” is Shakespeare in Clark Park’s first effort to make a winter season play away from its summer home of 19 years in the “dog bowl” amphitheater of Clark Park. The play is running inside the Louis Bluver black box of the Drake Theater in Center City.

It has nothing to do with Shakespeare, other than a reference in its title: “The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)” is a 1987 comic mashup of 37 Shakespeare plays that was a hit on London’s West End and has been in production almost constantly since.

“Instead of using Shakespeare, we’re using Christmas movies,” said writer and director Brenna Geffers. “It’s a way that people can either really nerd out about Christmas movies or just enjoy the madcap and melancholy-ness of them.”

Shakespeare in Clark Park’s producing artistic director Shamus McCarty is expanding the company beyond its self-titled territory. Like many theater companies in the last four and a half years, SCP was hit hard by the pandemic. Last year, McCarty came on as leader with a vision to take the company beyond a single annual production in August.

“The thing that excites me most about the organization and its history is the fact that we are an embedded tradition of Philadelphia that is local. It’s something that people can count on,” he said. “What I’m really hoping for, in the spirit of this holiday show, was: How do we become another new tradition that is slightly off the beaten path of what people expect?”

As a fast-paced compendium of holiday movies and TV shows, “The Complete Works of Christmas” teases out a vein of sadness that runs through the festivities. From a suicide attempt in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” to facing a lifetime of regrets in Dicken’s story “A Christmas Carol,” to the aching homesickness in the carol “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” yuletide melancholy is as common as fruitcake.

“The winter holidays are very complicated for people, for lots of reasons,” McCarty said. “So finding a way that everyone has an in, or a moment of, like, ‘I feel seen by this, because you reference my holiday memory or my holiday favorite movie,’ is the goal.”

Schoonover collaborated with Benner on her character, who is partially based on herself. She did once work at Dickens Village, the Macy’s holiday walk-through tableau in the Wanamaker Building, where she – just as did her character – witnessed every day some kind of poignant incident among the visitors that moved her to tears.

The holiday season is particularly difficult for Schoonover, who recently lost both of her parents in quick succession. Like her movie-obsessed character, she is learning what Christmas means to her now.

“The last few Christmases have been hard, and that is not unique to me,” Schoonover said. “We change, you know? As we get older, the holiday changes.”

“The Complete Works of Christmas (Abridged)” runs from Dec. 12 to Dec. 29 at the Louis Bluver Theatre, inside the Drake Theater at 321 Hicks St.