If you missed December's Branford High School (BHS) performances of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, fear not: audio excerpts from the local show are now featured in a national podcast of National Public Radio's (NPR) Planet Money.

"The NPR host of the radio broadcast and podcast, Keith Romer, came to the Friday [Dec. 7] performance and audio taped the play," director Maria Ogren shared with Zip06/The Sound.

On Dec. 21, Romer delivered Planet Money's "Episode 883: A Very Planet Money Christmas." In it, he discusses how Dickens penned A Christmas Carol to in response to a field of study emerging in Dickens' time which uplifted self-interested, industrial-age monetary gains of a growing middle class and distained and disparaged the poor.

In part, Romer's written introduction to the podcast describes, "...how A Christmas Carol took on some of the most important thinkers in the history of economics." The written online podcast intro is topped by a backstage photo Romer snapped of BHS student cast members Adam Jackson (Ebenezer Scrooge) and Ben Clouse (Bob Cratchit). The entire podcast can be accessed here

Although it was based on Dickens's 1843 novella, the BHS fall play's version of A Christmas Carol is an adaption co-written by Ogren and Chris Lemieux. Lemieux, a theater professional, is also a BHS fall play/spring musical alumnus. Ogren has been directing BHS fall plays since 1972. Even though she retired from her AP English teaching role at BHS in June, she continues to select and direct the school's annual fall plays, always with an eye toward telling stories relevant to issues emerging in society today. She said adapting this play was an exercise in inspiration for herself and Lemieux, allowing them to address some unanswered questions in the story crafted by Dickens (see related story).

An English teacher to the core, Ogren is thrilled to have this latest BHS production incorporated into an NPR teachable moment.

"It underscores the importance of literature in our time!" said Ogren.