By Joe Amarante | Published 8:05 am CST, Friday, December 6, 2019

Charles Evered

Michael Iannucci

You can catch a versions of “A Christmas Carol” in various places during holiday season (Goodspeed’s at Terris Theater, Hartford Stage), but the one at Ivoryton Playhouse is as intriguing as any, partly for its pedigree and humor.

The playwright Charles Evered, also a TV writer and filmmaker, is a graduate of Yale School of Drama and a former naval officer. He has written screenplays for major studios and directed two features of his own. Evered also wrote for the successful TV show “Monk” starring another Yale alum, Tony Shalhoub.

Evered’s “An Actor’s Carol,” running from Friday, Dec. 13, to Dec. 22, tells of an actor drained of artistic passion after having played the character Scrooge one too many times. He encounters three ghosts of his own as a cast of four actors plays 17 different characters in this comedic look at the holiday classic.

The play premiered in 2015 in Palm Springs starring Hal Linden of “Barney Miller” sitcom fame.

Evered, who is also a professor of playwriting at the University of California, Riverside, says in an Ivortyon release that the play “is a comedy, but unlike other spoofs and satires of ‘A Christmas Carol,’ it has heart and truth, particularly about theater.”

Michael Iannucci will return to Ivoryton Playhouse, where he previously appeared in “The Games Afoot” and “Six Dances in Six Weeks.”

Ivoryton Playhouse, 103 Main St., Essex, Dec. 13-22, Thursday-Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. $35-$15. 860-767-7318. www.ivorytonplayhouse.org.