When I first heard 'A Christmas Story, the musical,' I thought

Host: The theatre was empty, except for the faint echo of its own breath. Rows of velvet seats sat like silent witnesses beneath the dim glow of rehearsal lights. On the stage, dust swirled in a golden haze — the kind that only appears when dreams are being quietly tested against reality.

The set stood half-finished: a crooked lamp post, a painted snowbank, a child-sized housefront with a door that didn’t quite close. Someone had forgotten to turn off the wind machine, and a steady, low hum filled the air like the soft exhale of winter.

Jack stood center stage, his hands in his pockets, studying the space with a kind of skeptical awe. His face — carved in its usual half-smile, half-frown — reflected both curiosity and the faint ache of nostalgia.

Jeeny sat on the edge of the stage, her feet dangling, the script open in her lap. Her eyes gleamed in the half-light, not with the logic of analysis, but with the raw wonder of someone who still believed in stories.

Pinned to the corkboard near the stage door was a printed quote:

“When I first heard ‘A Christmas Story, the musical,’ I thought, Oh, that could be really good. It just felt like it fit. Some films lend themselves well to other formats, some don’t, but there are so many fantasy sequences in the film, and Ralphie’s such a dreamer as a character, I thought they could really lend themselves to being set pieces.” — Peter Billingsley.

Jeeny: (smiling, softly) “You know, I love that he said that. The idea that not every story wants to become something else — but some just fit. It’s like certain stories are born knowing they’ll live twice.”

Jack: (dryly) “Or die twice. You ever seen how many bad remakes are out there? Movies turned into musicals, books turned into shows, all because someone thought it felt like it fit.”

Jeeny: (laughing) “You’re impossible. That’s not what he meant. He was talking about essence — the kind of story that naturally transforms. Like it’s got rhythm in its bones.”

Jack: “Essence or exploitation — depends who’s producing.”

Host: The sound of a backstage door slammed, then the quiet clang of a metal ladder being adjusted somewhere in the wings. The air tasted of sawdust and faint glue — creation in progress.

Jeeny: “You really think every adaptation is corruption?”

Jack: “Not every. Just most. The moment you turn a film into a musical, you risk trading depth for melody. It’s like translating poetry — something always gets lost in transit.”

Jeeny: “Or something gets found.” (she stands, walking toward the edge of the light) “Think about it — Billingsley saw possibility. The original story already had songs in it, they were just silent. The music was in Ralphie’s dreams, his fantasies, his kid-logic. All the ‘what-ifs’ in his mind were already dancing — they just needed a stage.”

Host: Jack crossed his arms, watching her as she stepped into the glow of the rehearsal light. Dust floated around her like static snow.

Jack: “You really think every dream belongs on a stage?”

Jeeny: “No. But some do. The difference is whether the dream translates — whether its language of emotion can survive another medium. That’s what he meant — some films lend themselves well to other formats, some don’t. It’s not just about transferring; it’s about transforming.”

Jack: “So you think it’s evolution, not imitation.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: A pause, filled with the quiet crackle of the stage lights cooling.

Jack: “You ever think that maybe our lives are like that too? Some moments are cinematic — meant to be lived once, remembered forever. Others… maybe they lend themselves to new formats. Maybe we get to rewrite them, set them to music, turn regret into performance.”

Jeeny: (gently) “You mean redemption through adaptation.”

Jack: “Something like that.”

Host: She smiled, her eyes softening. The stage creaked faintly under her feet as she took another step forward, her voice lower now, more intimate.

Jeeny: “That’s beautiful, Jack. You’ve got more poet in you than you admit.”

Jack: (shrugs, half-smiling) “Even cynics get sentimental under stage lights.”

Host: The two of them stood, bathed in the half-gold, half-blue light, as if they’d stepped into the liminal world between fiction and feeling. The set pieces loomed around them like half-remembered dreams.

Jeeny: “You know, there’s something human about adaptation. We’ve been doing it since the beginning — myths turned to plays, plays to films, films to songs. Every time we retell something, we don’t just preserve it — we add ourselves to it.”

Jack: “But when does it stop being preservation and start being distortion?”

Jeeny: “When the heart gets replaced by the market. But Billingsley wasn’t talking about commerce. He was talking about fit — that intuitive sense that says, ‘Yes, this story breathes here too.’”

Host: A spotlight flickered to life, briefly illuminating the cardboard snowbank. The two figures were caught in its soft halo. Jack stepped forward, picking up a small prop rifle — a child’s toy, painted gold for the musical’s rehearsal.

Jack: “Ralphie wanted this, right? The Red Ryder BB gun?”

Jeeny: (nodding) “Yeah. And in his mind, it was everything — power, joy, imagination. That’s the beauty of it. Childhood dreams are already musicals — exaggerated, full of fantasy sequences. That’s why Billingsley said it fit. It wasn’t just nostalgia — it was structure. Imagination lends itself to rhythm.”

Jack: (turning the toy over in his hands) “Maybe that’s the secret to good adaptation — find the dream underneath the dialogue.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. You can’t just copy — you have to translate feeling. The difference between mimicry and metamorphosis.”

Host: The wind machine kicked on again by accident, sending a soft gust across the stage. Jeeny’s hair lifted slightly, the loose pages of the script fluttering like startled birds.

Jeeny: (laughing) “Even the air wants to perform.”

Jack: “Or maybe the ghosts of old productions are still trying to say their lines.”

Jeeny: (grinning) “You really think ghosts rehearse?”

Jack: “If they were actors in life, definitely.”

Host: The moment broke into laughter — light, genuine, echoing across the cavernous space. But beneath it lay a tenderness neither spoke aloud — the quiet understanding that change, like adaptation, was not loss but continuation.

Jeeny: “You know, Jack… maybe we’re all just trying to turn our lives into something that sings.”

Jack: (looking around the stage, the unfinished world around them) “And maybe that’s what keeps us from fading — finding new formats to tell the same truth.”

Host: The lights above them began to dim, one by one, until only the soft glow of the footlights remained — warm, flickering, fragile. Jeeny closed her script, set it gently on the stage.

Jeeny: “Every story deserves a second chance — if the dream inside it still has a pulse.”

Jack: “And every person deserves the same.”

Host: The theatre fell silent again. Only the faint hum of the wind machine remained — like a long exhale after the final note of a song.

In that stillness, the meaning of Billingsley’s words seemed to bloom fully:
that art — like life — sometimes finds its truest form not in perfection, but in reinvention.

The stage is just another way of saying I still believe this dream can live again.

And as the final light went out, Jeeny and Jack stood there in the dark — two silhouettes framed by the echo of possibility — while outside, the night itself seemed to wait, as though the next act were already being written.