By Randi Bjornstad

If you saw this musical on Broadway, you would be paying a fortune for tickets to the show, not to mention air fare, hotel, and restaurants, and on top of all that you would be risking the chance of exposure to the coronavirus in the process.

Not a good idea in these pandemic times. Not that it’s going to happen anyway, with New York City’s theater district being as dark as everyone else’s.

But here’s an opportunity. Oregon Contemporary Theatre — which like all local theater companies is on hiatus until it’s safe again to put on a show — is sharing an idea that can give you some holiday cheer, and maybe along with it the chance to feel a semblance of being in the Big Apple for a couple of hours without leaving your living room.

Through the OCT website, you can buy tickets to the world premiere of a new musical theater/film mashup called Estella Scrooge: A Christmas Carol with a Twist!. It’s a digital theater production that has been written, cast, and performed by professional Broadway actors in the months since the pandemic began, and the tickets give you the opportunity to stream the show through the holiday season.

The production uses a variety of techniques — green screen, 3-D digital, and actual film footage — to create something more than the sum of its parts. The show is the brainstorm of John Caird, who directed Les Misérables and Nicholas Nickleby on Broadway, and composer-lyricist Paul Gordon, who collaborated with Caird on another Broadway show, Jane Eyre.

To be sure, while Estella Scrooge! is in the same family as Charles Dickens’ original of A Christmas Carol, this is a whole new deal. Here’s how it’s described in OCT’s announcement of the show:

The story follows Estella Scrooge, a modern-day Wall Street tycoon with a penchant for foreclosing. A hotelier in her hometown of Pickwick, Ohio has defaulted on his mortgage and Estella fancies the idea of lowering the boom personally. Arriving at Harthouse on Christmas Eve, Estella discovers that the defaulting party is her childhood friend Pip Nickleby. A good and generous soul, Pip has transformed the property into a refuge for the sick, dispossessed and homeless. A freak snowstorm forces Estella to take refuge. That night, just as it happened to her ancestor Ebenezer, she is haunted by three visitations…and oh, what uninvited house guests they are!

So while it relates to Dickens’ novella that has been captivating audiences since 1843, it also offers some extras that aficionados of Dickens’ work will appreciate, including names, characters, and plots from many of his other novels, such as Great Expectations, Little Dorrit and Bleak House.

The show features well-known Broadway actors such as Betsy Wolfe (a star from Waitress), Clifton Duncan (The Play That Goes Wrong), Lauren Patten (Jagged Little Pill), Patrick Page (Hadestown), Carolee Carmello (Parade), and Danny Burstein (Moulin Rouge!). Many additional actors from other blockbuster Broadway shows also are among the cast.

If you want to take a look at the trailer for Estella Scrooge, click here: Estella Scrooge

There are two ways to participate in this production: For $29.99, a household may view the show at will for a 72-hour period.  A “VIP Premium Theatre Experience” costs $44.99, which includes unlimited viewings, a download of the CD of the show, plus behind-the-scenes footage of its production.

To purchase tickets to either version of the show, go online to https://bit.ly/OCTEstellaScrooge, or via OCT’s website at octheatre.org.

If you need more information, email OCT associate producer Tara Wibrew at tara@octheatre.org