Prescott, Arizona (Dec. 1, 2025) – A funny thing happened to Mike Grady on his way to obtaining his MFA at the University of Arizona and delayed him in securing his FMA by about ten years.
“Halfway through my grad program, I kind of fell into a lot of… I won a contest,” Grady said. “I won the American College Theater Festival’s Outstanding Student Playwright Award. And that tripped me into a whole lot of professional theater opportunities. And you don’t put those on hold to finish your degree, right? Acting!”
Grady, who with his co-adaptor and director Matthew Weiner, is staging an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novella “A Christmas Carol” with The Phoenix Theatre Company starting at the end of November.
Having acted in several adaptations of the seasonal production, Grady had ample opportunities to envision his own version of the play.
“Every working actor has spent time doing ‘A Christmas Carol’ because it’s seasonal, it’s such a popular story and is always coming around,” said Grady. “And some of them get really sick of it. But I just always loved the story. But when you’re trudging through synthetic fog, you’re thinking, ‘If I ever get a chance, I could do a better adaptation.’”
In 1999, Grady’s co-adaptor and former head of the Actors Theater of Phoenix Matthew Weiner, along with composer Alan Ruch, asked one another if they thought they could do their own adaptation, and the answer was a collective “yes.”
For Grady, this labor of love was sparked by a notion in other adaptations that he felt wasn’t getting the proper focus.
“There’s this part in the story that is often glossed over, where they go to prisons and they go to hospitals and they go to miners and they go to the loneliest, saddest people on the planet and show how Christmas kind of revives them or stirs them,” Grady said. “And it’s a little messy. There’s a little bit of an edge to it. But I thought, I really love that part of the story. And if I ever do one, I’m going to do that. There’s a tendency for a lot of them to sand off the edgy stuff, the social responsibility end of it.”
Following the completion of the adaptation in 1999, they staged the production at the Actors Theatre of Phoenix, where it enjoyed a long run. Then two things happened, said Grady. The Actors Theatre closed, and several years later, their composer Alan Ruch died.
“Alan was a genius-level guy, but he was also one of these guys who kept a lot of his stuff in his head,” Gray said. “And he died without leaving a musical score for ‘A Christmas Carol.’ So our show was effectively dead.”
About two years ago, Grady said, The Phoenix Theatre Company started talking to them to stage their adaptation. They hired a new composer, Craig Bohmler, who was already familiar with the production from being the orchestra pianist in it. It was a long process to pull out the music from the original version and re-orchestrate is for a seven-piece orchestra.
“Matthew and I decided to pull out the script and let’s try to make it sharper and let’s try to fashion it for this particular new theater it’s going to be in,” Grady said.” There was a good amount of rewriting, and it was kind of a weird thing to pull something that you wrote so many years ago. They’re still in the rehearsal hll, and it’s really weird, because it’s like it’s my own ghost of Christmas past.”
“A Christmas Carol” is being performed by The Phoenix Theatre Company at the Dr. Stacie J. and Richard J. Stephenson Theatre in Phoenix from Nov. 26 to Dec. 28.
“I’m really grateful for the ability to write and for everyone who has taught me along the way,” Grady said. “Writing has taken me on a number of adventures, and now I have the opportunity to give back by putting my skills to the service of noble causes, like education. It’s rewarding to be able to do this work, and I am lucky in every sense of the word.”
Grady is the author of two novels, Breaking Ball and the soon-to-be- released Angel of Tolleson Gap. His plays include Dancers, which won the American College Theatre Festival’s National Student Playwriting Award; and The Harmony Codes, which was staged at the Sundance Playwright’s Lab and premiered at Michigan’s Purple Rose Theatre. He and his wife Linda DeArmond co-authored the book for A Beautiful Place, a musical based on the life of artist Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. He has won Arizona Newspaper Association and Press Club awards for humor and features writing at the East Valley Tribune. His stories have appeared in Phoenix Magazine, The Tucson Weekly and The Phoenix New Times.
Hired by Yavapai College in 2016, Grady works as a Marketing Specialist in the Marketing and Communications department. Prior to joining college Grady worked in journalism.
“I was a features journalist for eight years at the East Valley Tribune. I managed to somehow find the only industry less stable than theater,” Grady said.
Yavapai College operates seven campuses and centers throughout Yavapai County and offers over 100 degrees and certificates, four baccalaureate degrees, student and community services, and cultural events and activities. To learn more about Yavapai College, visit www.yc.edu.