A Christmas Story: The Musical is a musical stage adaptation of A Christmas Story. It has music by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and a book by Joseph Robinette. As with the original 1983 film, the story follows Ralphie, a young Midwestern boy in the 1940s as he prepares for Christmas and hopes for a Red Ryder BB Gun.
The show premiered in 2012. In 2017, it received a live, televised adaptation called A Christmas Story Live!
A Christmas Story: The Musical provides examples of the following tropes:
- Adaptational Attractiveness:
- Combined with an Age Lift; the middle aged Chinese carolers from the original are played here by the younger and more attractive acapella group, The Filharmonic. Could also be a case of Decomposite Character, since they're a quintet instead of a trio this time.
- Miss Shields falls under this too, since she's played by the beautiful Jane Krakowski.
- Adaptational Dye-Job: Miss Shields is blonde here, while in the original film (and the stage musical), she has dark brown hair.
- Adaptational Expansion: Mrs. Schwartz, in the original film, was only heard as a voice over the phone. Here, she appears in person, and plays an expanded role with a song about Hanukkah, going as far as to tell Ralphie the dreaded "You'll shoot your eye out!" line when he states his desire for the BB gun.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: The adult Ralphie holds the door open for his mom, and the two make eye contact before she gets into the car.
- Colorblind Casting: Several of the characters were played by African-American actors, most notably Flick and Ralphie's mom (played by the biracial Maya Rudolph).
- Informed Judaism: Schwartz is Jewish in this version. Justified, considering Schwartz is a common Jewish surname.
- Interactive Narrator: In addition to narrating the story itself, the adult Ralphie often interacts with the physical environment and frequently participates in the activities.
- Late to the Realization: In this version, it's only after the adult Ralphie describes the aftermath of him breaking his glasses that he finally realizes his mother was never fooled by the icicle story.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: After the singers at the Chinese restaurant perform "Deck the Halls" in perfect harmony and diction (rather than the Asian Speekee Engrish version from the original film), the Old Man comments that that's not what he expected (the owner of the restaurant even asks, "What were you expecting?" in a passive-agressive tone). An example of a Justified Trope, as keeping the original scene would raise the ire of civil rights groups and media watchdogs.
- Race Lift:
- As mentioned above, biracial actress Maya Rudolph plays Ralphie's mother.
- In the original film and the stage musical, the cranky Mall Santa is portrayed as white. Here, he's played by black actor David Alan Grier.
- The singing Chinese waiters are played here by Filipino acapella group The Filharmonic.
- Took a Level in Kindness:
- In this version, though somewhat fueled by his worries about not getting the BB gun, Ralphie walks over to Schwartz's house to apologize for pinning the blame for saying the f-word on him.
- Schwartz also apologizes to Flick for triple dog daring him to stick his tongue on the flagpole.
- Would Hit a Girl: Scut and Dill pick on both girls and boys in this adaptation.
