Event

A Beer Carol

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

"A Beer Carol": A goodly amount of the theatrical output from craft beer advocates Steve Mosqueda and Sean Benjamin (the men behind "Drinking & Writing") tends to focus on love of a hoppy brew. It was only a matter of time before they incorporated that into a Christmas show, and "A Beer Carol" is the inspired result. Staged as a 1940s-era radio play (a nice riff on similar versions of "It's a Wonderful Life"), a corporate blowhard named Bud Miller (get it?) runs a large brewery that churns out the kind of mass-produced watery swill that makes beer purists lose their minds. Following the Dickens template, a series of ghosts visit him on Christmas Eve, with reformation on the mind...the show has an embraceable subversive charm. The bit in which Tiny Tim gets smacked on the head after he utters yet another annoying platitude is one of the funnier recurring gags in the show. Carolyn Shoemaker is the cast MVP, voicing everything from the goober-mouthed Tiny Tim to a jazzily seductive ghost.