About A Christmas Carol

Welcome to West Coast Players' presentation of A Christmas Carol as Charles Dickens himself performed it. In 1867, the great writer (and keen amateur Thespian) Charles Dickens visited New York City in early December. There he gave two platform readings of A Christmas Carol. One was held at the Steinway showroom on East 14th Street and one was held at a church in Brooklyn. Lines of eager audience members almost a mile long formed at each venue. West Coast Players recreates this classic performance without the weather or the wait in line. Paul Fegan stands in for Dickens and works from Dickens own prompt book stored in the Rare Books collection of the New York City Public Library. You will never think of Dickens, Scrooge, Christmas or ghosts quite the same way again.


Paul Fegan started performing at the tender age of 9 when he played a newsboy in Gypsy and has not stopped. Early in his career, he appeared at Orleans Arena Theatre on Cape Cod in Cabaret (Franz), the lead roles in Scapino, The Mikado and Candid (Voltaire), followed by traveling around the country in national tours of The Fantastiks, Lo and Behold, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and My Fat Friend before moving to NYC. He graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and married his leading lady, Gerri. He acted at The 16th Street Playhouse and The Players Club and served on the Board of Directors of Manhattan Conservatory Theatre, having performed in A Cry of Players and the US premiere of Little Moon of Alban.

Moving back to Massachusetts, he and his wife Gerri founded Fegan’s Pocket Storytelling Troupe and, together, they wrote and traveled internationally performing custom-tailored stories for schools, libraries, and festivals, the peak of which was mentoring a youth theater group in Essabalu, Kenya called The Gifted Souls Theatre Stars.

Most recently, Paul has appeared in some of his favorite roles (Fagin in Oliver, Mordechai in Fiddler, and Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles at St. Petersburg City Theatre) at regional and local theatres in MA and FL. Paul also has been an active performer for The Murder Mystery Company of Tampa.

Dickens’ A Christmas Carol has always been a holiday staple at the Fegan house where they own almost every video of every version of A Christmas Carol known to man! Dickens’ storytelling touches a complex chord in the human heart. He fires the imagination and creates a world where the meagerest of meals can become a feast, and the least of our “fellow travelers to the grave” can be the greatest of heroes. Dickens shows us the heart of Christmas and asks us to have it as our own. So as Tiny Tim observed, “God bless us! Every one!”

West Coast Players, Inc.