Business owners in the Central West End neighborhood of St. Louis have long adorned their storefronts with festive decorations during the holiday season.
That tradition is getting a twist this year, courtesy of a collaboration between St. Louis Shakespeare Festival and Painted Black STL, the artist collective that formed this summer to paint on boarded-up windows around the city.
Fifteen artists are creating storefront displays that interpret scenes from Charles Dickens’ oft-adapted novel “A Christmas Carol.” They will be in place from Nov. 28 through Dec. 23.
The project, called “A Walking Xmas Carol,” also includes a musical element. As they stroll from one storefront to another, visitors are encouraged to listen along to a humorous, hip-hop adaptation of the story of Ebenezer Scrooge recorded by Chicago-based group Q Brothers. (St. Louis Shakespeare Festival performed Q Brothers’ very loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” in January.) The storefront project was also developed in partnership with Central West End Window Walk.