While many people have been preparing for Halloween, MVCC Academic Theater has been focused on another holiday season.

“A Christmas Carol” runs Nov. 4-13 at Moraine Valley Community College's Fine and Performing Arts Center's Dorothy Menker Theater in Palos Hills.

“This is a slot where we do academic theater every season. Which of the two weeks that we can really do a show is driven by the academic calendar. Whatever show we were going to do, we had to do it in this space,” said Tommy Hensel, director of “A Christmas Carol.”

“Even though it's a Christmas show, it's a lot more universal than Christmas. Yes, it's a little early but it's a well-known title and we felt like people would still be interested in coming to see it.”

Hensel drew from his experience of adapting “A Christmas Carol” into a one-person version staged by Harrisburg Shakespeare Company for the State Museum of Pennsylvania in 1994 and a previous version he produced with local Equity performers approximately six years ago.

“I've done the one-man version fairly often. All I had to do was remove that framing mechanism and go back to the book and add a couple of scenes that I may have cut because of the one-man thing,” said Hensel, managing director of the Fine and Performing Arts Center.

“It was fairly easy to adapt because I had already adapted it for the stage. All I had to do was write two scenes: the prologue to set up that there are narrators, and I added a scene that I had cut in my original version. It's the famous scene at the nephew's house where they're playing the party game.

“Everything else is verbatim from the book. I cut some narration and made some of the scenes more concise but I really didn't take any of the plot out. I just removed some of the descriptive language.”

Based on the novella of the same name, which was published by Charles Dickens in 1843, “A Christmas Carol” follows miser Ebenezer Scrooge as he is visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet-to-Come.

“It's stood the test of time that many stories haven't. It's put on radio, on film and on stage in many different ways because Dickens has a really clear, insightful way of zeroing in on human nature so the subject of this script is absolutely relevant,” said Hensel.

“Some of the language is archaic to modern audiences but the actual characters, who they are and their motivations are very much like William Shakespeare. They stand the test of time because they're universal.”

Featuring students and community members, the cast comprises 12 performers including residents of Justice, Oak Lawn, Palos Park and Orland Park.

“Most people are playing at least three characters. Some are playing four or five so it's a great stretch for the actors because they get a chance to change from one scene to the next,” said Hensel.

“It's a really interesting challenge for the actors and they're doing a really nice job of differentiating among the characters.”

The 2016-17 MVCC Academic Theater season also includes “Spring Awakening” Feb. 23-March 5, “A Doll's House” April 28-May 7 and “The Merchant of Venice” outdoors July 20-23.

Jessi Virtusio is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.