While no one will be sheathed in clay for this weekend's performance, the cast of No Refund Theatre's rendition of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas will feature enough ghosts and ghouls to properly celebrate the most devilish and devious of holidays.

With a cast of 22 people, Director Sabina Ptasznik (senior-theatre) said she began adapting the movie screenplay into stage format earlier this year. She said she transcribed the dialogue from the movie, making her own modifications to create a unique rendition of one of Burton's most famous films while still paying tribute to its original production.

Originally released in 1993 as a clay animation film, The Nightmare Before Christmas is the story of Jack Skellington, the notorious pumpkin king of Halloween Town, who has grown tired of the screams and horrors of his dark title. Most of all, he is bored with the same Halloween year in and year out.

One night, as Jack mistakenly stumbles upon the neighboring Christmas Town and experiences the candy-coated snow globe world of Santa Claus, he decides to merge the two to create a brand new Christmas tradition in Halloween Town. When the werewolves and mummies scramble to assume their new Yuletide roles, disaster ensues.

"When the script was finally transcribed, it was almost exactly, like the movie with some differences in the beginning and ending narration, as well as some modifications in the characters; for example, instead of four vampires, there's one," Ptasznik said. "I was looking for more of a cabaret style."

The performance will be complete with costumes and original songs from the film. Ptasznik said the cast is excited to portray characters such as Jack, Sally and even Oogie Boogie.

"The amount of talent embodied in this cast is amazing," Ptasznik said. "These are characters they've wanted to play their whole lives."

Mark Schroeder (sophomore-theatre) said he was equally pleased to be donning the mask of the pumpkin king for the performance.

"Jack Skellington is such an iconic character for our generation, which makes him very special," Schroeder said.

Schroeder said that while he is taking Jack's original interpretation as the enthusiastic and well-intentioned master of nightmares into account for the performance, he is also pursuing his own darker and more macabre ideas on the characterization of Skellington for the performance.

"He has a child-like innocence in the film, but my take is that he's clearly insane," Schroeder said. "You don't understand his true insanity in Halloween Town because it makes sense in that environment, but when you see him and his interactions in Christmas Town, then he seems a little bit scarier."

Included in the cast is the clown with the tear-away face, played by Jeremy Rubenstein (senior-theatre and journalism).

A testament to the image of the evil beings that plague clown-a-phobics everywhere, Rubenstein said he hopes his interpretation of this evil clown will give him a chance to demonstrate his juggling and clowning skills as well as scare as many people in the audience that he can.

"I think this character gets joy in freaking people out; this clown is a nut, and I get to bring out my nutty side when playing him," Rubenstein said.

Rubenstein, who attended the premier of the original film in Los Angeles at age 9, said he remembers the power the movie had on him and believes that this weekend's performance will stay true to the film's original magic.