The Twelve Plays of Christmas: Traditional and Modern Plays for the Holidays

Here is a joyous pageant of plays by masters through the ages - including Dylan Thomas, Charles Dickens, Thornton Wilder, Langston Hughes, and Hans Christian Andersen - ready to be produced, along with The Traditional Christmas Pageant and The Second Shepherd's Play in a modernized text and a lively version of St. George and the Dragon. Comedies like A Visit from St. Nicholas Amahl and the Night Visitors Kringle's Window and A Partridge in a Pear Tree stand beside more serious works such as A Child's Christmas in Wales Black Nativity Scrooge and Marley The Match Girl's Gift and The Long Christmas Dinner called by critic John Gassner ...the most beautiful one-act play in English prose. Lowel Swortzell, himself the author of a number of popular Christmas plays, has brought together these delightful works, which are ideally suited for performances in the classroom, sanctuary, or theatre. Ranging from the traditional to the contemporary, they also can be enjoyed for themselves as holiday reading that reminds us how Christmas has inspired great writers to their highest dramatic achievements.