Holiday Cheer from the Antebellum South! Columbia, South Carolina. December 24, 1862. It is the week of the Christmas Raid of Kentucky and the height of the war among the states. The chill in the air carries hickory-scented plumes of smoke upward from colonial chimneys. Within Antebellum homes, Confederate soldiers cuddle-up with southern belles beneath mistletoe and share mint jelly, ambrosia, and chestnuts from the hearth. Ebenezer Scrooge, wealthy plantation owner, will have none of it. That is, until the miserly curmudgeon is haunted by the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future and forced to review his wasted life of misanthropy. Never straying in message from Charles Dickens novella, Chris Cook has set the Christmas classic in the American Civil War, a time of strife and struggle not unlike the pain and poverty that belied 1830s Dickensian London. Also included is a delightful companion piece to the play. CONFEDERATE BILL, Memoir of a Civil War Veteran is the real-life autobiography by Cooks great, great grandfather, William E. Trahern. Published for the first time ever, it is an important piece of history, documenting the adventures and vagaries of a young rebel soldier. Both stories are southern-fried treats! Yule love em!
