There’s a new Scrooge in town.

Mark Domyan is playing Ebenezer Scrooge in the Civic Theatre Of Allentown production of “A Christmas Carol,” Dec. 4 -19, Nineteenth Street Theatre, Allentown.

It’s the 26th annual year Civic has staged the adaptation by William Sanders, Civic Artistic Director and show director-choreographer, and Sharon Lee Glassman, Civic Board Of Directors President, of the Charles Dickens’ classic 1843 novella.

Domyan was previously on the Civic stage in Sondheim’s “Passion” and has been in other Lehigh Valley theater productions.

Sanders has directed “A Christmas Carol” at Civic since 1989, when Allentown’s West End Theatre District venue first staged his and Glassman’s adpatation, for all but four of the 26 years.

Civic’s production includes several songs with the entire cast, 127 by Sanders’ count, including the Ivy and Holly cast of “Urchins” and “Party Kids,” holding candles and singing “Angels We Have Heard On High” at the play’s conclusion as artificial snowflakes fall.

The score, which is from the original 1989 production, includes hammer dulcimer and harpsichord. “I wanted the music to have an other-worldly quality and a film score feel. The music is specific to the period because the songs are specific to the show,” Sanders says.

Lots of stagecraft is involved in Civic’s “Christmas Carol.” Special effects emhasize “the ghost story,” Sanders notes, which, of course, “A Christmas Story” is. There are visual projections, sound effects, a music score and dramatic lighting (400 light cues, according to Sanders) in the approximate two-hour show.

“Marley’s Ghost, in particular, is very frightening this year,” says Sanders. Remy Kayal is The Ghost Of Jacob Marley.

Sanders says every year, each production is a little different:

“Most of the inspirations come during rehearsal. There are little staging tweaks and even lines that are added where we feel we may need them.

“There are a couple of scenes that are optional ... and we’re adding one scene back in this year. I don’t want to give away what it is.

Not only is there a new Scrooge, but the Ghosts are new.

“And the Ghosts are all women this year, which is fun,” Sanders says.

Denise Long is The Ghost Of Christmas Past. Andrea Cartagena is The Ghost Of Christmas Present. Chelsi Fread is The Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come.

“We had more than 100 audition this year,” says Sanders. “We have a lot of really talented men.”

“A Christmas Carol” is one of, if not the most popular shows in Civic’s season each year, although its fall musicals, “The Addams Family” this year, and “Young Frankenstein” last year, are giving it a run for the money.

“It’s the founder of the feast, as Dickens says,” Sanders says of “A Christmas Carol” and its box office impact on Civic.

In additon to the public performances, there are four student matinees for students from schools across the Lehigh Valley and beyond, including: Sacred Heart Regional School, The Swain School, St. Ann’s School, Arts Academy Charter Middle School, Lower Macungie Middle School, Northampton Area Middle School, Springhouse Middle School, Northwestern Lehigh Middle School, Northwestern Elementary School, Weisenberg Elementary School, St. Thomas More School, Faith Christian Academy and Moravian Academy.

Sanders says “A Christmas Carol” is about the importance of family not only in the storyline, but in the production itself:

“Regardless of the bottom line and the fact that it [‘Christmas Carol’] does make money, live theater is for want of a better word, a family. It’s a place where you can go and it’s the reason this place [Civic Theatre] was founded 80-odd years ago.

“The people who were in it [‘Christmas Carol’] come back to see it. It’s that sense of continuity that brings the joy of family.”

Sanders enjoys directing “A Christmas Carol”:

“It certainly puts me in the Christmas spirit, most of the time. Seeing young kids who started at five or six playing the older roles and moving on to college brings home the sense that Civic really is a home and a family for people.”

And yet, for Sanders, Civic’s “A Christmas Carol” became a burning issue:

“Right before we’d go into the theater for the last rehearsals, I would have anxiety attacks. And I never put the two together that it was the candles.”

This is the fourth year that electric candles, some 65-strong, instead of candles with flames, will be used in the finale.

“And parents across the Lehigh Valley breathed a sigh of relief,” Sanders joked, adding:

“One of the mothers came in one year and paid to have everything sprayed flame-retardant.”

“A Christmas Carol,” 7:30 p.m. Dec. 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19; 2 p.m. Dec. 6, 12, 13, 19, Civic Theatre of Allentown, 527 N. 19th St., Allentown. Tickets: civictheatre.com, 610-432-8943