Seth Michael Donsky

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A Christmas Carol

This collaboration with the Calgary Men’s Chorus, under the direction of Jean Louis Bleau, combines the lost art of storytelling with interspersed musical pieces – a departure from the typical Christmas concert.



An excerpt from the concert /​ reading:

This is a MP3 file. Listen to the performance of the track here (2.0MB)

SOLOIST
(singing, acapella)
God rest ye marry gentleman! Let nothing you dismay!


NARRATOR
The fog and darkness thickened. The cold became intense. Piercing, searching, biting cold. The owner of a scant, young nose, gnawed by the cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped at Scrooge’s keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol.




SOLOIST
(singing, acapella)
For Jesus Christ our savior was born upon this day!




NARRATOR
Scrooge seized a ruler with such energy of action that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and frost.

SCROOGE
Cratchit! You’ll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?

BOB CRATCHIT
If quite convenient, sir.

SCROOGE
It’s not convenient and it’s not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you’d think yourself ill used and yet you don’t think me ill-used, when I pay a day’s wages for no work.

BOB CRATCHIT
It is only once a year.

SCROOGE
A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every twenty-fifth of December! But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning.




MUSIC CUE 4
God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman
END CUE

MUSIC CUE 5
Lux Aurumque

NARRATOR
(Dialogue over chorus)
Scrooge went home to bed. He lived in chambers that had once belonged to his deceased partner. The fog and frost hung about the black gateway of the house. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. Now it is a fact that there was nothing particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the city of London. Then let any man here explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change -- not a knocker, but Marley’s face. As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.

END CUE

Selected Works

Cover Story, New York Press, June 2011
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Cover Story, New York Press, October 2010
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Imagine a life in which you didn’t owe money to anyone. SETH MICHAEL DONSKY discovers that is the ultimate, achievable goal with Debtors Anonymous
Cover Story, New York Press, June 2009
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Marriage may have its benefits, but SETH MICHAEL DONSKY wonders whether the struggle for same-sex marriage is really about equal rights—or just validation.
Short Film, 2004
Loopy
“Shades of Highsmith are everywhere in this cheerfully nasty fairy-tale study in domestic Claustrophobia and latent psychosis.”
–Cinematexas
Cover Story, New York Press, April 2009
The Trouble With Safe Sex
SETH MICHAEL DONSKY visits NYC’s last remaining bathhouses to investigate whether safe sex is still an effective message against HIV.
Point Click Home, February 2009
Hollywood's Classic Interiors
The most decadent and influential set design in the great films from the 1930s-1970s
Adaptation & Performance, December 2008
A Christmas Carol
“Gay production of A Christmas Carol bucks holiday traditon”
–xtra.com
Gotham Magazine, Sept. 2008
Barbara Tober Profile
Profile of New York MAD Museum Chairman Barbara Tober.
Point Click Home, August 2008
Sensual Feng Shui
A room by room guide to a home that pleases all your senses.
Feature Film, 1997
Twisted
“A stylized, operatic fable as inspired by Dickens as by the silent cinema masters.”
–The Los Angeles Times
“A GREAT Oliver Twist update… transporting Twist to the contemporary dark. Twisted’s plot carries a humane vision that, true to Dickens, inspires rage!"