Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
Synopsis: Old Max, the Grinch’s long-suffering dog, looks back on the Christmas Eve when the mean, green Grinch, fed up with all the noise and joy coming from the Whos down in Who-ville, decided to steal Christmas, dragging a young Max along for the ride. A Children’s Theatre Company original musical, adapted from Dr. Seuss’s 1957 book and first staged at CTC in 1994.
Starring: Reed Sigmund (The Grinch), Dean Holt (Old Max), Luciana Erika Mayer (Young Max), Matea Córdova Stuart (Cindy-Lou Who), Autumn Ness (Mama Who), Matthew Hall (JP Who), Suzie Juul (Grandma Who), Adam Qualls (Grandpa Who)
Written By: Book and lyrics by Timothy Mason, music by Mel Marvin, based on the book by Dr. Seuss. “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” and “Welcome Christmas” by Albert Hague and Theodor S. Geisel
Directed By: Dean Holt; choreography by Karla Grotting; music direction by Jason Hansen and Victor Zupanc; associate director Stacy McIntosh
Design: Tom Butsch (scenic), David Kay Mickelsen (costumes), Nancy Schertler (lighting), Sean Healey (sound), Craig Gottschalk (projections)
Production Type: Professional
Venue: UnitedHealth Group Stage, Children’s Theatre Company, Minneapolis
Running Length: 2 hours, including one 20-minute intermission
Content Advisory: Best enjoyed by everyone. CTC’s audience guide says the Grinch’s look, loud music, flashing lights, haze and characters in the aisles may be a lot for kids under 5. Lap passes ($5) for children 3 and under.
Now Playing: Through January 3, 2027
Performance Reviewed: Sunday, November 8, 2026, at 5 pm
In This Performance: Angela Steele was on for Young Max
Show Review in Brief: CTC’s homegrown holiday musical still has David Kay Mickelsen’s delightful Who costumes, clever projections, and a sweet Cindy-Lou, but a Grinch two sizes too loud and forgettable songs turn a once sturdy, sentimental trip to Who-ville into a strained one.
3 out of 5 Spotlights
Review:
For me, the nostalgia starts in the parking lot. Every walk up to Children’s Theatre Company feels like a trip back in time, and heading in to see the Grinch this month was no different. I was five years old the first time my family discovered CTC, back in the 1985-86 season, to a production of Cinderella that had already been charming audiences for years with its panto-style pandemonium. We fell for it so hard that my parents bought front-row Saturday night seats for the entire next season, and we held onto them for the next 12 years. Watching a new world come alive every two or three months made me want to act on stage and threw the doors of my imagination wide open.
The building, where I was just in October for the world premiere of Twelve Kinds of Ice, has stayed largely the same over the years, give or take a second stage added in 2005. The main stage lobby, on the other hand, has grown from a humble gift kiosk selling ribbon-laced bookmarks and curated gifts to a theme-park-esque queue stocked with everything from Grinch merchandise to canned wine for the grownups and candy for the kids. Just don’t plan on enjoying any of it in your seat, because food and drink aren’t allowed in the theater. Somebody should tell that to the crinkly candy bag behind me, which was excavated one crackle at a time all through Act 1.
The Grinch at Children’s Theatre, Then and Now
Being subscribers put us in the room for the world premiere of Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas! in 1994, which was a lucky break, because tickets to that sold-out first run were next to impossible to come by otherwise. Who-ville unfolded onstage like a pop-up book. The sets sparkled with snow, the Whos bounced around in their roly-poly costumes, and the whole company told that classic story with a sincerity that kept its message and magic intact.
Since that first year, the Grinch at Children’s Theatre has come back more than a dozen times. Not bad for the first stage version of the story, which the Seuss estate entrusted to CTC three years after Theodor Geisel’s death. The musical has since gone on to Broadway, national tours, and an annual holiday run at San Diego’s Old Globe, all in stagings of their own. I’ve caught it here occasionally, but it had been a solid decade since I last made it back to Who-ville to encounter the Mean One. Though it’s still early in the Christmas season, I paid him a visit and was surprised (I puzzled and puzzled till my puzzler was sore) to find the show I once found sturdy and sentimental to be stressful and strained.
Call Me a Grinch
Call me a Grinch, but what can I say? I’m a traditionalist. I like Christmas stories that start dark because they’re working toward the light, and tales of redemption that give us a character we actually want to see redeemed. Over time, this production has gotten smaller, trimming some numbers (and, if my eyes don’t deceive me, a few cast members) and swapping some of the original sets for projections, a change that, I’ll admit, works beautifully. Most disappointing of all, it’s begun to rely on folly instead of fidelity to the source material.
The Grinch has always been a character who’s more interesting to watch than to listen to, which is a big reason the 1966 animated special has endured for so long and why live-action versions or next-gen remakes feel so off-putting. We like seeing him silently weave like a snake through the Whos’ Christmas presents, or flash that devilish grin as his wonderful, awful idea takes shape. The musical’s Grinch is a talky fellow, though, hating Christmas so much that he blabs (and sings) about it for quite some time, and then blabs about it a little more.
The company lends fine voice to Mel Marvin’s music and Timothy Mason’s book and lyrics, but Marvin’s plunky score isn’t special enough to give the good singers (and the show is full of them) much to make something out of. There also isn’t enough of the classics we know for any of it to become a holiday earworm. The most memorable tunes are still the ones Albert Hague wrote for that animated special, “Welcome Christmas” and “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.” Only “Santa For a Day,” a sweet song sung by Cindy-Lou Who, finds a way in, but it comes so far into the show that you may have already started making your New Year’s Eve plans by that point.
A Grinch Two Sizes Too Loud
Dean Holt has been part of CTC’s Core Company since 1994, the year this show premiered, and he’s played everything from a Who to the Grinch himself before taking over as its director. This time around, he’s pulling double duty, directing the show and playing Old Max, the Grinch’s faithful dog all grown up, who tells the story looking back. His knowledge of the show gives him a warm sense of knowing in the role. Anytime he’s onstage, you get a sense of the truth the show was written for, the kind of honest, “I’m going to talk to you like we’re old friends, not like you’re a child” performance I miss at CTC. I only wish more of the performances were at Holt’s level of honesty, because there’s a way to nail the Seuss tone and still find the silly.
I caught the show at the end of the cast’s opening week, so I’m not sure if Reed Sigmund, back in the neon green fur for the ninth time, had already reached the delirious exhaustion that can come after a seemingly never-ending run of performances. Either way, this wasn’t a Grinch I found easy to get behind, even knowing his redemption arc was coming. Over the years, Sigmund has more than proven himself a massively talented performer, ingenious with physicality and comic timing, and he’s a cornerstone of both the CTC family and one of the most reliably excellent actors in the Twin Cities. For me, though, this Grinch was more obnoxious than anything, with a lot of effort going into bellowing lines, contorting his face, and employing a strange vocal inflection that got next to no response from the sold-out audience in the first act. If all that couldn’t rouse a room full of children who love a pratfall, that has to tell you something isn’t working.
The ice started to break in Act 2, when he dropped character somewhat and came into the audience for a scripted bit of interaction, and that’s where Sigmund’s talent really had a chance to shine, as he found kids to banter with who he could tell would play along. It’s by far the most genuine and funny part of his performance, because while it’s part of the show, it’s still spontaneous interaction that hasn’t been worked to death over hundreds of performances (in case you aren’t aware, children can be unpredictable) and is happening right there in the moment. The second it switches back into the show, you can feel the machinery working against the performer, the story, and the audience again.
Filling out the rest of Who-ville, Matthew Hall is a well-sung JP Who, while Adam Qualls and Suzie Juul apply just the right amount of dotty comedy as Grandpa and Grandma Who. Matea Córdova Stuart’s Cindy-Lou Who is sweet as can be, handling the delivery of the musical’s best song and taking the lead in its most moving scene with a promising level of maturity. Understudy Angela Steele was on for Young Max and brought a youthful pup energy and exuberance, something her other job on this show, assistant choreographer, undoubtedly helped her nail.
Hourglass Whos and a Trippy Twist
You can’t write a word about this show without talking about David Kay Mickelsen’s absolutely delightful costumes for the Whos, which give new meaning to the term hourglass figure, after all the sand has run to the bottom and it’s unable to be flipped over. Each design is unique and personal, right down to the powder-puff wigs on some of the women. Karla Grotting’s choreography is energetic and musical, too, with performers often holding tubes and other music makers that get kicked, plucked, or plunked by their knees and feet.
The first time you notice Craig Gottschalk’s projections is exactly when you notice they are projections, and it’s a trippy moment indeed. Of all the upgrades the show has made over the years, this is the one I appreciate the most, because it blends right in with everything else onstage, including the pieces of Tom Butsch’s original 1994 set that the production still uses.
Who’s Down in the Pit?
Victor Zupanc, CTC’s resident music director and composer since 1989, conducts the orchestra from the pit, and before the show he pops up out of it, right at the foot of the stage, in a sparkly jacket. I always think this is a great move, not only to take an earned bow but to remind people that the music they’re about to hear is live, performed by a team of excellent musicians who give the score a light and lively edge.
Sitting close to the stage, I also watched Zupanc before the show and at intermission answering questions for curious kids who wandered down to peer into the pit, and I remembered how I was one of them back in the day. I did genuinely worry that a few of the smaller ones were going to flip right over the edge, but an usher at the front of the stage had it covered. Still, parents, always go with your kids!
Maybe Christmas Means a Little Bit More
Those kids leaning over the edge are a good reminder of who this show is really for, and that’s exactly why it deserves better. The CTC I grew up with talked to kids like adults, trusting them with real stakes and real feelings. Lately it has drifted toward the kind of children’s theater where everything is broad physical comedy with little substance underneath, and the Grinch, a show that once had plenty of substance, has slid into something of a bumbling mess.
Start with the volume. The kids in the back row will still get the message even if it isn’t caterwauled to the rafters, and all that bellowing distorts what Geisel was going for in the first place. I kept getting lost in the effort instead of the performance. If the Grinch comes back next year, I’d challenge CTC’s casting to shake things up, because that’s how everyone stays fresh. After nine trips up Mount Crumpit, it may be time for Sigmund to hand off the neon green fur and let someone new go looking for the Grinch’s heart. Maybe Old Max is in his future, so he can try that sincerity on for size.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! runs through January 3 on CTC’s UnitedHealth Group Stage, and for families making their first trip to Who-ville, the costumes, the live music, and the Grinch wading into the crowd may be all the magic they need. For those of us who grew up on it, though, the Grinch at Children’s Theatre could stand to think a size or two outside the box, and lower its voice a size or three.
Where to See Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
Through January 3, 2027, on CTC’s UnitedHealth Group Stage. Weeknight shows at 7 pm, weekend shows at 11 am, 2 pm and 5 pm, plus extra 2 pm and 5 pm shows during the holiday weeks (no shows November 26, December 24 and 25, or January 1). ASL-interpreted and audio-described December 5 (2 pm) and December 12 (11 am); sensory-friendly December 2 (7 pm) and January 2 (2 pm). Tickets $25 to $130 at childrenstheatre.org/grinch or 612.874.0400.
Disclosure: I attended the November 8 performance as a guest of Children’s Theatre Company, which provided two complimentary tickets.
Quoting this review? Please credit: Joe Botten, Off Screen/On Stage (TheMNMovieMan.com)
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