By BILL VARBLE

Mail Tribune

To put on two plays for the holiday season, you have to be brave or crazy.

"I vote for crazy," says Peter Alzado, Oregon Stage Works artistic director.

OSW will present Kirby and Markita Shaw's "Scroogical," a musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," and Ruth Wire's "A Modern Woman," a play about the women's suffrage movement, as its holiday fare.

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"Scroogical," a premiere, is being produced by OSW and directed by Markita Shaw. "A Modern Woman," directed by Bob Miner, is being presented through a partnership between OSW and Ashland Community Theatre.

"Scroogical" offers a new look at a much-loved classic with an original musical score by award-winning composer Kirby and a book by Markita. It opens at 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 24, in Ashland's A Street Market Place, and runs at 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and at 2 p.m. Sundays through Dec. 31.

"A Modern Woman" opens Sunday, Dec. 3, at OSW and runs at 8 p.m. Sundays through Wednesdays through Dec. 20.

"Scroogical," which is designed for both adults and children, will be the third adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" that OSW has offered over the years. It comes on the heels of 2005's "Ebenezer Who?" by S.S. Paddy Schweitzer.

"Some stories just touch a nerve," Alzado says.

Music in the show ranges from beautiful ballads to metal and rap, Markita Shaw says. All the characters people expect will be there, plus a few surprises, she says.

"The fact that people want this story every Christmas tells me they love the idea of redemption," she says. "Here's this grumpy guy who's created this little world, but he can come out from that and see the world anew."

She says the musical comedy form gives writers the opportunity to make everyday life into something special.

"Moments become songs," she says.

The play features 20 actors, with original music on a CD that Kirby, the founder of Kirby Shaw Music, made in Los Angeles with studio musicians.

Markita Shaw says there's been talk over lunch with musical theater people in New York City about a production there. Performances from the weekend of Dec. 14 will be videotaped with that possibility in mind.

As Broadway shows have become more and more expensive, more new plays are being premiered and polished at regional theaters.

Kirby Shaw writes and arranges choral music. He has some 2,500 choral works in print and has performed with such musicians as Bobby McFerrin, Jon Hendricks and Al Jarreau.

Markita Shaw trained as a dancer and singer at the Boston Conservatory of Music and is a longtime choreographer who runs the business end of Kirby Shaw Music as her day job.

The cast of "Scroogical" features Geoffrey Blaisdell, who has appeared on Broadway in "Jekyll & Hyde," "Cyrano" and the 20th anniversary production of "Amadeus." He was last seen at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in "The Winter's Tale" and "The Importance of Being Earnest."

Also featured are Don Dolan, whose career includes numerous roles in film, television and musical theater, and Lisa Butler, a noted singer and performer who has traveled to Ashland to play the role of C.P.

"A Modern Woman" looks at the suffragist movement chiefly through the experience of one young woman and her family. It will run 12 performances, Sundays through Wednesdays, Dec. 3-20. Tickets for "A Modern Woman" are $20 and $15 (students and seniors) by calling 840-1527.

Emily, the young woman of the title, wants to write plays in 1911 England, a time and place where women simply don't do that sort of thing. It is the week before Christmas, the Victorian era is fading, a new world is dawning, and Emily's journey into militant feminism is about to shake up her family.

Ruth Wire, of Ashland, wrote "A Modern Woman," and composer and ex-Ashland resident Charles Armstrong wrote the songs. Wire, 75, grew up in Los Angeles, became a nurse, raised a family and studied screenwriting. The author of eight unproduced screenplays, she's long been a presence in the off-Bardway theater scene. "A Modern Woman" was first produced four years ago in Ashland's Green Room.

As with "Scroogical," there's talk of the play growing beyond Southern Oregon.

"Bob Miner has a vision for this play that it won't stay here in this valley," Wire says. "He wants it in regional theaters all over the country. He's invested a lot of time and money in it."

Wire says the play has changed quite a bit since a 2002 production that included a play-in-a-play puppet show.

"It ended with an easy solution that wasn't believable," she says.

The play includes "March of the Women," a song by a real suffragette of the day.

Emily will be played by Justine Jensen of Medford, James is Duncan Hightower of Ashland, Ruby Henrie of Talent is Doris, Pat Murphy Garfas of Ashland is Megan, and Uncle Hugh will be played by Scott Ford of Ashland.

OSW will donate the proceeds of the Dec. 1 performance of "Scroogical" to Oregon Action.

if you go What: "Scroogical" and "A Modern Woman" When: Nov. 21 through Dec. 31 Where: A Street Market Place, 340 Oak St., Ashland Tickets: $20, $10 for students, for "Scroogical"; $20, $15 for seniors and $10 for students for "A Modern Worman." Tickets are available at Grocery Outlet in Medford and the Music Coop in Ashland Call: 482-2334