PROVIDENCE - Few of us go to see “A Christmas Carol” for novelty’s sake. Except for the very small, perhaps embarking on a first theatrical outing, the point is to partake in a communal reminder of what this sometimes maddening holiday is all about. Many of us, raised on Dickens’s perdurable 1843 bestseller, could probably quote the dialogue by heart.
So it’s all the more impressive that every year since 1977 Trinity Repertory Company - now the grandsire of New England’s bevy of habitual “Carol”-ers - has taken on the double challenge of making it new for the audience and for itself.
Abjuring the temptation to trot out the same winning formula (the musical is so popular, it’s scheduled for 20 performances a week, necessitating two casts), Trinity Rep, the last true resident company in the country, starts from scratch each holiday sea son, while adhering to a text devised by former artistic director Adrian Hall and a score by Richard Cumming. This time out, actor Fred Sullivan Jr., having appeared in 20 past productions, takes on directorial duties.
Company costumer William Lane has switched hats to design an adaptable, atmospheric streetscape packed with as many pop-up possibilities as an advent calendar. Assuming the added mantle of musical director, actor William Damkoehler (who plays Scrooge in the “Ivy” cast) has composed a welcome new carol - the old canon has been flogged to death by Muzak - and tinkered with the arrangements.