Jeff Goode’s play premiered in 1994 and was staged worldwide since. It is NOT your commonly nice and cosy Christmas story but a quite dark look into Santa’s world – or what traditional storytelling pertaining to the ‘festive season’ since Santa took over made us believe it is.
The reason why revealing this ‘backstage’ report by the pack of well-known reindeer to an audience now is because the core of the story and the responses of the protagonists to ‘the incident’ have not changed at all; on the contrary. 32 years later, in a world that undoubtedly has progressed significantly, and the social and political fabric may have changed, people’s attitudes haven’t.
The beloved Australian institution Christmas in July 2026 is the fitting time and place to talk about some rumours regarding Santa Clause, Mrs Clause, the elves, what happened to Rudolph and with other reindeer of the pack.
It is about Santa’s toy workshop, about Santa’s gift delivery service, about Santa’s counselling service to those little boys and girls out there... about Santa the seemingly untouchable representative of ‘good deeds’ in the world, the omnipotent ‘Boss’ of a well-oiled machine in the corporate entertainment industry.
We aren’t really telling stories of an imaginary Santa, but of real people who sit in a place of power and use that power not only to satisfy business purposes. The reindeer who spill the beans here are all witnesses of what happened in the toy workshop... one after the other representing a segment of society and commenting from their more or less egotistical personal point of view, perception and judgment. Like in real life, nothing fictional.
And there will be Christmas again in December 2026.
Directed by Wolf Heidecker
LX/Sound/Visuals Design by Alex Brown
The Reindeer Pack (in order of appearance): Fanny Hanusin; Darren Thao; Joshinder Kaur Chaggar; Kay Morton; Sharon Karina; Jo-Anne Armstrong; David Lih; Isabelle Wang
By Arrangement with ORiGiNTM Theatrical On behalf of Samuel French A Concord Theatricals Company
*Contains coarse language and sexual references. Strictly MA rated.
EVENT DETAILS:
TIME/DATES: 7:30PM, 8 - 11TH JULY 2026
DURATION: 90 MINUTES WITHOUT INTERVAL. DOORS OPEN 30 MINUTES BEFORE THE SHOW
VENUE: THE SHOWROOM THEATRE
