Guthrie Theater honors late playwright with ‘A Christmas Carol’

They’re going to do everything they can to make “A Christmas Carol” the most festive it’s ever been.

That’s because the themes of death, redemption and ghosts have become all too real for the cast and crew of the enduring holiday favorite whose 51^st production opens Friday at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

On Sept. 10, a month before “Carol” rehearsals began, playwright Lavina Jadhwani died of cancer. She was 42.

Jadhwani’s adaptation of the Charles Dickens novella is being staged for the sixth year. Her death gutted her collaborators, who can no longer call on her to tweak scenes or address questions about interpretation or nuance.

Her aura now has been infused in a different way into a show famous for the transformation of uber-miser Scrooge after visits by ghosts. But hers, Jadhwani’s friends insist, will be a different type of haunting.

“I miss most of all her very joyous spirit,” Guthrie artistic director Joseph Haj, who chose Jadhwani’s adaptation and directed the first production, told the cast on the first day of rehearsal. “She was an artist of the first caliber.”

Haj teared up as he spoke. Jadhwani was not just the adapter of “Carol” but also a dear friend. He tapped her to direct a sweet production of “As You Like It” at the Guthrie, and last year she served as associate director on his epic marathon production of Shakespeare’s History Plays.

After staging the initial “Carol,” Haj turned over the directing reins to Addie Gorlin-Han, who had an even deeper relationship with Jadhwani.

“Lavina was a superstar theater nerd — insanely talented as a director, writer, adapter, producer, casting director, artistic director, educator and board member extraordinaire,” Gorlin-Han told her actors.

Gorlin-Han recounted the story of how the “Carol” gig came to be for her. Jadhwani called her up in 2021, she said, shortly after she had had her first child and during a time when she had numerous work conflicts. Gorlin-Han was reluctant at first. But the playwright charmed her with her wit.

Haj, she recalled Jadhwani saying, needed a “chaos muppet — every focused person needs a muppet by their side to mix things up a little.” She suggested that Gorlin-Han be that relief.

The show, Gorlin-Han continued, is about life, death and rebirth. One of those is something people try to avoid.

While “Carol” is a venerable tradition, there are changes to the production every year. Gorlin-Han said that there are at least three new audience-facing things this year.

Two young performers will alternate playing Fan, Scrooge’s younger sister, in her girlhood.

Scrooge’s nightmare sequence, in which he dreams of a horrid fate in the afterlife, has gotten more fleshed out.

And there’s an added dance sequence between young Scrooge and Belle before they break up.

“I sat with Lavina about two months [before she died] in her apartment and we sort of dreamed this up,” Gorlin-Han said. “Though it’s Dickens story, Lavina’s spirit, voice and dedication to equity, representation and the joy of Christmas is generously sprinkled across this adaptation, sparkling like glitter forever embedded in the text.”

Where: Guthrie Theater, 818 S. 2nd St., Mpls.