photographs by Barry Wisdom

The lobby full of faux fir trees laying in wait for candy canes and garland is a sure sign that B Street Theatre artistic director and co-founder Buck Busfield is once again playing Kris Kringle for Sacramento-area theatergoers.

For 14 of the past 17 years, Busfield the playwright has muffled Marley, scratched Scrooge, kicked the crutch out from under Tiny Tim and canceled Christmas for the children in Wales in favor of stuffing audiences’ stockings with an original holiday-themed play of his own device.

Busfield said what has since become something of a yuletide tradition for him and his company – which continues this year with Sunday’s main-stage opening of “Northport Cottage” – was initially born of desperation, and not an overwhelming desire to deck the halls.

“We opened the theater with no real plan, and after we did our first four shows, we couldn’t find anything that had that Christmas feel,” said Busfield, who recalls that the theater’s first “holiday” offering, James McLure’s “Pvt. Wars” – about a psychiatric ward populated with Vietnam veterans – had about the same level of popular support as the war itself.

While he and his B Street co-founder/brother Tim Busfield were all about branding their new shop as “small and new and something edgy,” Busfield noted the fiscally responsible sibs came to the conclusion that, “next time, we’d better try something else.”

But the dearth of appropriate published plays (small cast, quirky with elements of comedy and drama, set during the winter solstice) forced Busfield to dash away, dash away, dash all the way to his computer keyboard to try his hand at writing his own dickens of a seasonal script.

Mining a lifetime of old-fashioned family Christmas memories that centered on his college professor parents celebrating dour holidays by refilling their old fashioneds was maybe too edgy, however, and Busfield retreated to his imagination for such original holiday works as “Holiday Tales from Around the World” (1994), “And All Through the House” (1995) and “A Lot of Life” (2001).

By year three, Busfield said, his holiday-writing project born of necessity was becoming a habit with no plans for rehab. Not only were the B Street audiences circling the shows on their advent calendars, but also other companies around the country began producing Busfield’s shows for their own holly-hungry audiences.

In December, San Pedro’s Little Fish Theatre will stage Busfield’s “And to All a Goodnight,” which premiered at B Street in 1997.

“All theaters do better at Christmastime,” said Busfield, who’s unwrapping two additional Christmassy shows this season, Lisa Kron’s “Well” (B3 Series, now playing) and Allison Gregory’s adaptation of Barbara Park’s “Junie B. Jones in Jingle Bells, Batman Smells!” (Family Series, opening Nov. 20). “Parents are willing to go out and spend money on themselves and their kids. Audiences in general are interested in coming out during the holiday season to have a good time.”

Busfield’s recipe for the holiday play that is at once both sweet and spicy, that goes down smooth like nutmeg-laced egg nog, continues to be distilled and refined to a perfect, intoxicating blend of hilarity and pathos.

Those who return year after year to imbibe a B Street Christmas cocktail often find themselves sliding easily from laughter to tears without giving a figgy pudding if their seatmate catches them wiping away the odd tear.

The recipe is tricky, Busfield said. “If it’s too silly I hear about it, if it’s too serious I hear about it.”

Creating characters for specific B Street company members helps maintain a consistent tone onstage and off, said Busfield, who has cast a host of familiar faces for “Northport Cottage,” including Dana Brooke, Kurt Johnson and Mitch Agruss.

Brooke plays Kellin Delahanty, who “careens toward her past to better understand her present.” Her destination? The small Lake Michigan cottage she visited as a child. Johnson is the unsuspecting motorist who gets taken along for the ride on her journey of self-discovery.

For Brooke and Johnson, both former B Street apprentices, returning to B Street for a Busfield Christmas show is like coming home for the holidays.

For Johnson, “Northport Cottage” is Busfield’s holiday original No. 7. His first was 1994’s “Holiday Tales” opposite Dave Pierini, who is featured in “Junie B. Jones in Jingle Bells, Batman Smells!” Agruss is right behind Johnson with six Christmas originals, and Brooke has four.

Though it’s clear Busfield has affection for each of his company members, perhaps there are none more than the venerable Agruss, who Sacramento baby boomers may know as afternoon children’s TV host “Cap’n Mitch.”

“Mitch has qualities that nobody else has,” said Busfield, who first brought Agruss back to the stage after a three-decade absence for B Street’s 1995 production of “Fool for Love.”

“When he walks on stage, there’s an extraordinary decency and acting skill that’s larger than life,” said Busfield. “You can’t act that at all.”

Busfield said rehearsing the Christmas shows is not unlike an office Christmas party and that the casts look forward to the generous reception given them by holiday audiences, who Busfield said are generally “warmer and happier.”

“For actors, it’s always fun to do a new play,” Busfield said. “Plus, they’re pragmatic, and it’s always good to have jobs during the holidays.”

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BEFORE YOU GO

WHAT: “Northport Cottage” by Buck Busfield, a world-premiere comedy for the holidays.
WHEN: Previews 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 13, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 14. Opens 7 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 14, and runs through Jan. 2, 2011 (6:30 p.m. Tuesdays, 2 and 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 9 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays).
WHERE: B Street Theatre Mainstage, 2711 B St.
WHO: Written and directed by Buck Busfield, featuring Dana Brooke, Kurt Johnson and Mitch Agruss.
HOW MUCH: $12-$30.
FOR INFO: (916) 443-5300; www.bstreettheatre.org.