THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS is available from YouthPLAYS publishers.


The Night Before Christmas

A 15 minute comedy for 10-30 Middle School and older actors.

The famous poem that begins “Twas the Night Before Christmas” comes alive and goes awry when the characters try to figure out what it all means.

Runtime: 15-20 minutes

Period: Present

Setting: A stage.
CAST: 10+, all roles flexible
FIRST NARRATOR
SECOND NARRATOR
CHORUS
(Individual members speak as CHORUS ONE, CHORUS TWO, etc.)
MAMMA
PAPA
ELDEST CHILD
YOUNGEST CHILD
MOUSE
SUGAR PLUMS
DOROTHY
ST. NICHOLAS

The play is newly available from
YouthPLAYS.


The Night Before Christmas

Comedy, 15-20 min, 10-30 actors
Suitable for Middle and Upper Elementary School performers and audiences of all ages!

The Night Before Christmas
The cast of the Fort Stockton High School production, currently touring the show to elementary schools and retirement homes! Photo by Susann Hall.

About the play

In The Night Before Christmas, a group recitation of the famous poem A Visit from St. Nicholas immediately goes awry when the narrators start arguing over the title, authorship, and the meaning of it all... but what seems like a recipe for disaster evolves into a performance that is more inclusive, more educational, more ridiculous, and just more fun than the original!

Why this play?

When I was a child, my mother would read Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas to us every Christmas Eve, and every time she got to the line “I ran to the window and threw up the sash”, my older sister Susie would make puking noises because she knew it grossed me out. It’s been decades now, but the family tradition continues unbroken. I and my siblings have children of our own now, and while we can't always celebrate Christmas together, when we do we always read the poem to the kids on Christmas Eve, and my sister, who you think might be old enough to have grown out of it after almost fifty years, still pretends to throw up. It still annoys me just as much - but it also inspired this play!




Sample Dialogue...


A selection of text from The Night Before Christmas





2023 Holiday Season productions!

The play will be at the Plough Arts Center in the UK, Fort Stockton High School in Texas, and St. Mary's Academy, Englewood CO in the 2023 Holiday season!

Plough Arts Christmas Celebration