Acting Company tells 'A Christmas Story' (SOLD OUT)

"I don't know how you could live in America and not have heard of this show," co-director Jeff Graham said about "A Christmas Story," Jean Shepard's farcical holiday play based on the 1983 movie of the same name, which opens Friday at The Acting Company in Yuba City.

The film was based on Shepard's 1966 book of short stories "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash."

"It's the 'You'll shoot your eye out' movie, the pink bunny suit movie — if you don't know the name, that's how you've probably heard of it before," Graham said. "They run it 24 hours a day on Christmas Eve on TBS or TNT, and I think they've been doing that for 10 years or more now.

"It's a reminiscence back to the narrator's childhood in Indiana, growing up in the end of the 1930s," he said.

In the play, the narrator, Ralph (Keith Gagnon), describes a memorable boyhood Christmas when he was on a quest to get a Red Ryder BB gun.

"You get to see all of his attempts at getting his parents to buy it, getting it from Santa Claus — and his friends and all kinds of crazy hijinx along the way," Graham said. "It's a really fun, family-friendly show."

Co-directed by Mark Johnson, the cast includes Blake Rider as Ralphie; Finnian Grossman as Randy, Ralphie's younger brother; Dave Harris as Ralphie's "Old Man," Mr. Parker; Betsy Johnson as Ralphie's mom, Mrs. Parker; Gannon Koranda and Kaleb Horvath as Ralphie's best friends Flick and Schwartz; Joey Lafnear as the bully, Farkus; Elizabeth Holcomb as Miss Shields; Summer Givens as Helen; and Joanna Jarvis as Esther Jane.

"The last time The Acting Company did this show, which I believe was four or five years ago, I helped design the sounds and ran sounds and (my son) Brandon did stage hand help. This time I'm more in the driver's seat, and we decided to kick it up a notch, as it were," Graham said.

"We are making it a much more high energy, fancy technical show. There's a lot more flash and bang and craziness than there was in the previous show, so it's pretty exciting," he said.

"I double-dog-dare you to come see this show!"

Update: On Dec. 14, Bob Harlan reported that all remaining performances of "A Christmas Story" are sold out.

CONTACT Susan Benitez at sbenitez@appealdemocrat.com or 749-4773. Find her on Facebook at /ADFeatures or on Twitter at @adfeatures.