From the San Diego Arts Community...

Bill Murray isn’t the only one getting “Scrooged.”

The mood is decidedly Dickens this holiday season, with the world’s most heartless man learning the true meaning of Christmas in three traditional and two comic versions of “A Christmas Carol.”

But glad tidings for the theatergoer in search of well-balanced holiday fare: The season brings unexpected variety as well.

Floyd Gaffney and the Progressive Stage Company revive Langston Hughes’ “Black Nativity” for a look at the story through black Gospel songs. Old English Christmas carols are more likely to deck the halls of Kerry Cederberg’s new original script for the Lamb’s Players Theatre annual “A Festival of Christmas.”

And one can even see a flicker of Hanukkah in one of the several skits that make up Sweetooth Comedy Theatre’s premiere of a local playwright’s “Christmas Lights.”

“A Christmas Carol”

The San Diego Repertory Theatre’s 13th annual “A Christmas Carol” is constantly renewing itself through the visions of different directors. This year, the director of Douglas Jacobs’ script is Michael Addison, a former San Diego Reppie who is now artistic director of the Berkeley Shakespeare Festival. Original music is by Gina Leishman, who won a San Diego Critics Circle Award for best new score for “Red Noses” this year. Shows at 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sundays, through Dec. 24 at the Lyceum Stage, Horton Plaza, 235-8025.

Theatre Arts for Youth presents a musical adaptation by Nels Martin, who narrates the story and directs a cast of young people at the Rancho

Buena Vista High School Performing Arts Center at 1601 Live Oak Drive in Vista. Shows at 7 p.m. today, Saturday and Dec. 10, and at 2 p.m. Saturday, Sunday and Dec. 10 and 11, 727-4833.

Poway Performing Arts Company presents “A Christmas Carol” at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and at 2 p.m. Sundays, today through Dec. 18 at Golden West Academy, 13634 Cynthia Lane, (679-8085).

“Coal in Your Stocking” is a parody of “A Christmas Carol,” brought courtesy of the Piparoos, a group of San Diego comedians. Shows at 8 p.m. Dec. 21-23 and at 11 p.m. Dec. 23 at the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre, 547 4th Ave., 281-4876.

“A Scrooge Family Christmas, Fourth Generation” is an original musical spoof based on asking the question of where Scrooge’s descendants would be now. Dinner at 7 p.m. and curtain at 8, Fridays and Saturdays at the Pine Hills Bar-B-Q Dinner Theatre, Friday through Dec. 18, with a 2 p.m. matinee Dec. 18, 2960 La Posada Way, Julian, 765-1100.

The Dickens Players, a traveling troupe from the University of California, Santa Cruz, will present selections from “Nicholas Nickleby,” “Hard Times,” “David Copperfield,” “Great Expectations” and “A Christmas Carol” at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 10 at the Cultural Arts Center, 3557 Monroe St., Carlsbad, 434-2920.

“Great Expectations” starts with an unexpected gift from a little boy to a convict on Christmas Day that will change the boy’s life. United States International University presents the Charles Dickens classic at the Theatre in Old Town at 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays, with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2, Thursday through Dec. 24, 4040 Twiggs Ave., 298-0082.

“Black Nativity” revives Langston Hughes’ 1961 depiction of the birth of Christ through Gospel songs. Shows at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and at 7 p.m. Sundays, through Dec. 18, Progressive Stage Company, 433 G St., 534-0670.

“A Festival of Christmas,” an 11-year tradition at the Lamb’s Players Theatre, is a new original Christmas play by Kerry Cederberg, the organization’s resident playwright, that tells the story of a 14-year-old girl in the 1950s Midwest who awaits the reunion of her rather distant family. Shows at 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and at 7 p.m. Sundays, with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2, through Dec. 24, 500 Plaza Blvd., National City, 474-4542.

“Christmas Lights,” a new series of eight holiday vignettes by local playwright Thom Overland at the new Sweetooth Comedy Theatre, includes “Holiday Bytes,” told through the eyes of two computers, and “Mekong Christmas,” in which two GIs find themselves in a jungle on Christmas 1969, and “A Festival of Lights,” the story of four street people who find a trunk on Hanukkah that changes their lives. At 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, with Sunday matinees at 2, through Dec. 23, Media Arts Center, 2400 Kettner Blvd., 561-1193.

“Christmas Fantasy,” a musical fairy tale, will be presented by San Diego Junior Theatre at 7 p.m. today and Saturday in the Casa del Prado Courtyard in Balboa Park, 239-1311.

“Merry Christmas Show.” Local puppeteer Marie Hitchcock lets her marionettes do the talking at 10:30 a.m. Fridays through Dec. 16, at 11 a.m., 1 and 2:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through Dec. 18, and at 10:30 a.m. Dec. 20. At the Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theater in Balboa Park, 466-7128.