The Santaland Diaries is Sedaris' biting, detailed account of his hellish experiences working as an elf during a hectic holiday season at Macy's in New York City. Sedaris' commentary was so popular with listeners that the piece was expanded into a short story and later a stage play, which the City Lights Theater Company of San Jose will mount as part of its two-act holiday production, starting Nov. 21.

Because Broadway director Joe Mantello's stage adaptation of The Santaland Diaries is a one-act piece, the company will pad the evening with "Stocking Stuffers," a collection of new, Yule-themed comic plays by Bay Area playwrights Terry Baum, Maureen Bogues, Prince Gomolvilas and Derek McCaw.

"At City Lights, we always value doing things that illuminate the holidays in a slightly different or askew fashion," says City Lights Artistic Director Tom Gough.

Gough explains that his company prefers staging holiday material that's on the unsentimental side. In past holiday seasons, City Lights has mounted plays like Moliere's The Miser, which has a title character who, according to Gough, "makes Scrooge look like a minor-leaguer."

Molly Peters, the director of the Santaland portion of the production, describes the evening as "Christmassy, yet not sacchariney-sweet."

Peters says John Michael Beck, the local actor who plays Sedaris, is more than up to the challenge of delivering a monologue that Peters and Beck once timed as 51 minutes long.

"I'm lucky to have such a talented actor, because 99 percent of the actors out there couldn't even do a one-man show," Peters says.

Beck, who once worked for a Dallas-based aromatherapy store franchise that he prefers not to identify, says he can relate to Sedaris' holiday horror stories.

"Retail is hell. It's amazing how crazed people get," says Beck, who proceeds to recall, Sedaris-style, some of the most bizarre holiday moments from his old job.

When Beck's company had him work at a location at San Jose's Oakridge Mall, he would regularly encounter a nutty customer with a devotion to the store's skin lotion.

"She'd come in and then proceed to put this lotion on her skin. The next thing you know, she's tasting the lotion," Beck says.

Beck recalls that the customers weren't the only ones who lost their minds during the holidays.

"Most of the employees at Oakridge were high-school students, and they haven't really learned to control their tempers. I usually heard my employees saying the most outlandish things," Beck says. "Most of them were high-school girls, so I got to hear everything about what's going on in their personal lives that no grown man should ever have to hear."

Beck says his worst Christmas ever was during the year when his company transferred him to a location in Berkeley.

"I had crooked employees that I didn't know about until it was too late, shoplifters left and right, and these sweet grandmas writing hot checks during Christmas," Beck says. "That Christmas made me hate the Bay Area. I wanted to go back to Texas. I thought, 'If this is how everyone in California is—writing false checks and spouting gibberish in my face—then I don't know if I can deal with these people.'"

Beck, who's glad that his current day job is not in retail, says he understands the popularity of The Santaland Diaries.

"I'm learning quickly that no matter what job you have, you're going to have some nuts," Beck says. "That's why Sedaris' piece is so popular. It's so funny because we've all been there."

'The Santaland Diaries/Stocking Stuffers' will run Nov. 21-Dec. 21 at the City Lights Theater Company, 529 S. Second St., San Jose. Tickets are $15-$25. For more information, call 408.295.4200 or visitwww.cltc.org.