“Redesigning Santa” – the performance that never was

Santa faces some uncomfortable truths when he’s subjected to the harsh scrutiny of a focus group.

 

Since I’d had early success getting Red-Nosed Drunk produced in 2024, I decided to try adapting another holiday essay I’d written years ago, this one about Santa Claus getting an image makeover. (You can read the original essay here.)

 

Because there was no actual narrative in the one-page essay, I created a meeting between St. Nick and two marketing professionals. 

 

Admittedly, the premise made for a pretty static play. Still, I thought it could work in ten minutes or less. The marketers presenting research that undermined all the tropes of Santa, and his reactions to their bizarre recommendations, seemed surprising, absurd, and funny. 

 


One big problem, though: My play, like the essay that inspired it, turned on a pop culture reference that was nearly 50 years old (a popular character from the 1970s-era sitcom, Happy Days). 

 

That probably torpedoed the play’s chances in competitions, whose judges were likely younger than the reference itself. Unfortunately, it was so integral to the climax of the story that I could see no viable way to replace it.

 

Every year that passes, the play gets even more dated. I’d pretty much given up hope of having it staged. Then it hit me: Why not just produce it myself, as an audio play? 

 

I didn’t have any professional actors I could impose on, but I thought it would be an interesting challenge to see if I could find the right AI voices and “direct” them to act out my play.

 

It took many iterations, refining my directions to the “actors,” experimenting with their voice speed and pitch, and even rewording some dialogue to get the attitude and inflections I wanted. Then I edited and mixed the audio track, overlapping lines and varying pauses to make it better simulate a real conversation. Finally, I laid in sound effects, chose appropriate theme music, and created a fictional performance photo and titles.

 

Would it be a better play as performed by flesh-and-blood actors? No doubt. But in all likelihood, this production of Redesigning Santa is all I’ll ever get. 

 

And it’s surprisingly … okay. (How’s that for a ringing endorsement?)

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