Mary's Dark Christmas
Independent Project
By Hayley Spivey, Music + Lyrics by Abbie Goldberg + Aaron Goodwin
Directed, Designed, + Edited by Andrew Child
See the full movie here.
By Hayley Spivey, Music + Lyrics by Abbie Goldberg + Aaron Goodwin
Directed, Designed, + Edited by Andrew Child
See the full movie here.
Orchestrations by
Moira Applebaum + Emily Politi |
Art Department
Tyffany English, Sara Kenney, Lou Lim, + Joe Wood |
Featuring: Ben Astrachan, Jack Brewer, Alex Casillas, Ethan Child, Becky Ittner, Michael Herschberg, Dylan Scott, + Kayla Shimizu
Thoughts on directing Mary's Dark Christmas...
When Hayley Spivey reached out to me with the idea for this screenplay, I knew it was a project with an incredibly brief shelf-life. After December 25, 2020, this piece could never be rewatched in the same context it premiered, but could be revisited as a fossilization of a cultural moment and a tool for recalling the un-glamorous realities of Christmas 2020 in America. Jean Shepherd's 1983 film A Christmas Story looks back at the late 1930s with romanticized distance and an abundance of hazy nostalgia. Mary's Dark Christmas looks at the present with subtle (and not so subtle) hints toward a desire for a different future.