Once again Alley Theatre offers The Night Shift Before Christmas as alternative programming to the more kid-friendly A Christmas Carol and director KJ Sanchez (Private Lives, American Mariachi) says it’s better than ever.
Not that the script has changed. This is still the story of Margot — with Briana J. Resa expertly playing her – a worker who’s become a bit stuck in the fast-food service world. She has signed up for another overnight Christmas Eve shift, but this time she’s possessed by a series of ghosts.
Margot lost her mom on Christmas so the annual holiday doesn’t hold perfectly happy memories for her. Despite this, the ghosts are urging her to leave and go to her cousin’s Christmas party.
“We had a good two weeks to re-rehearse,” Sanchez said. “Briana Resa gets better every time she gets on stage. We mostly worked on deepening the acting moments, making more connections between characters, leaning into the jokes,” said Sanchez.
This is still 75-uninterrupted minutes of fast-food action with Margo fielding drive-thru orders and handling a working grill on stage. Actor Orlando Arriaga supplies the various Voices, with a lot of mumbles along the way.
“We’ve had so much fun being actually able to grill real burgers on stage,” Sanchez said. “We were just talking at our break in rehearsal; we were asking each other who’s worked in the food industry. Most of us had.
“When I was a teenager I worked in a place very similar to Happy Burger. It was called Circle T. Working at one of those little mom and pop burger joints is just very nostalgic. It brings us back to a very fun childhood memory.
“We get to live vicariously through Margo who has a lot of attitude about the customers.”
“I think what Isaac did beautifully, [playwright Isaac Gómez] is that it’s also a love letter to the people who do those jobs .It doesn’t cast aspersions or say anything bad about having that job. These are the essential workers. These are the people who are making our food while everybody else is getting dressed for the party. And it’s a love letter to those people.”
Asked what she hopes audiences get from seeing the play, Sanchez said: “That everyone’s back story is beautiful and we can also trust that the ones we love are still with us. So it’s okay to keep moving on. It’s a play about resiliency and where to find that resiliency in ourselves. “
Asked about the reason for its success, Sanchez said: “I think because it appealed to a lot of people like me who have very mixed feelings about Christmas. They want to go out and do something fun for Christmas but they something a little different. This is a fun way to go out with your friends and have a drink and kind of embrace the cranky parts of Christmas.”
“I also think it’s popular because it’s just a funny, fun show,” Sanchez said. “It’s a warm, fun, lovely thing for people who don’t think traditional Christmas is uncomplicated.”
Performances are scheduled for December 3-28 (no performance on Christmas Day) at various times including 7 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays and December 22-23; 1:30 and 7 p.m. Saturdays; 1:30 p.m. Sundays; and 7 p.m. Monday, December 22 at Alley Theatre, 615 Texas. For more information, call 713-220-5700 or visit alleytheatre.org. $45-$71.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.