The Santaland Diaries

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Photo courtesy of Theatre in the Park

The Santaland Diaries

For more than a quarter of a century, public-radio and live-theater audiences have given annual thanks that, once upon a time, the person least suited for a job as a holiday elf at Macy’s, David Sedaris, got the gig—and that he then kept a diary, meticulously documenting its workaday horrors. For those who haven’t seen it, The Santaland Diaries details the none-too-steady Plan B of a desperately unemployed writer who’s just moved to New York after his initial strategy—instant stardom upon being “discovered” by the producers of One Life to Live—doesn’t exactly pan out. In Sedaris’s subsequent descent into the belly of the Christmas-retail beast, he’s forced to wear a dorky costume and vend the “grinding enthusiasm” expected of a corporate elf, all while suffering fools gladly—well, to their faces, at least. Jesse Gephart puts on the candy-cane stockings and curled-up shoes for his twelfth consecutive year in Theatre in the Park’s other long-term holiday franchise. —Byron Woods