Just in time for that festive holiday season, ISU Theatre presents A Christmas Carol. It’s just the ticket to stop shopping, give your credit cards a rest and pry yourself away from that carton of eggnog.

The show is based on Charles Dickens’ novel of the same name, but this ain’t no old-fashioned, boring story. It follows Ebenezer Scrooge (played by Dan Fairall), a gray-haired miser, through Christmases past, present and future with the guidance of three ghosts.

Playing the part of Scrooge, a notoriously grumpy and robustly hated character, took a bit of extra effort on the actor’s behalf. “It’s pretty fun,” Fairall said. “He’s the first mean character I’ve ever really played. I had a pretty difficult journey trying to find who he actually is because of the way the script is.”

This particular production breaks new ground with ISU Theatre because for the first time ever, a student is directing a major production. And of course, with such a pioneering endeavor, the road will be a little bumpy and quite adventuresome. “It’s been very interesting,” said Cara Peterson, director. “We kind of made the rules up as we went along since this is the first time ever a student directed a show. So I’m kinda like a guinea pig.”

And with this pioneering spirit comes a lot of challenges. All of the student actors carry full class loads and final exam schedules that inevitably conflict with practice and rehearsal. “There are times when we’ve said, ‘How can I do that when I’m supposed to be in class?'” Peterson said. “Classes? What are classes? Alarm clock? What’s that? … I get overwhelmed sometimes ’cause I’m not used to looking at 40 things at once.”

Fairall agreed that having a student director is a good way for actors to learn from each other and their mistakes. “It’s a learning process, and this is the first thing she’s directed,” he said. “I think it’s going really well for this being the first time she’s directed, and it being a main stage production, with such a large cast.”

The role reversal, in addition, has presented some difficulties. Peterson is a peer during the day and a boss in the evenings. “One minute, I’m sitting in 10 o’clock theater history class with them, and that night I’m telling them what to do,” she explained. “It’s really hard to find the separation, but we have. It’s not been easy for me as well. During practice, I have to stop joking around so much. Or in class, now’s not the time for notes [about the show].”

Part of the originality of this particular performance is that it hearkens back to Dickens’ original purpose in writing the book, which may be a little different from most people’s view of the tale. “Everyone thinks that they know the story: they rent the movie or whatever,” Peterson said. “I think the meaning of the show gets lost. Dickens wrote that he wanted A Christmas Carol to be an awakening of the human spirit. When Dickens wrote it, Christmas was almost extinct; he’s credited with reviving the Christmas spirit.”

“It’s about recognizing your responsibility to the rest of mankind,” Peterson continued. “There are a lot of child-welfare, socio-economic issues that have been sugar-coated. We tried to get back to the roots of the original story. … There’s definitely something for adults to walk away with.”

Fairall added that A Christmas Carol cuts to the heart of a lot of philosophies about the treatment of others.

“You can come for the basic message of the show, to stop and think about what you’re doing, whether that’s what you wanna be doing and how you treat other people.”

Student tickets cost $4.75 and are available at the door and in advance. Showtimes are tonight and Saturday night at 7:30 p.m., with 2 p.m. matinees Saturday and Sunday. Contrary to some posters, there is no Sunday evening performance.