"The Santaland Diaries” is a gift for everyone who would rather laugh hysterically at the crass consumerism of the holiday season than learn about the true spirit of Christmas. Recounting his time as an elf in Macy’s Department store, satirist David Sedaris describes the obnoxious parents, in-fighting employees and bizarre Santas who populate that most wonderful time of the year in New York City.

In Salt Lake City, the one-man-show adaptation of the NPR personality’s material is becoming something of a tradition. For five of the past six years, director Roger Benington and star Todd Parmley of the Tooth & Nail Theatre company have produced the play at the Rose Wagner Center. The year that the company produced Becky Mode’s “Fully Committed” instead, it was clear that the crowds still wanted to revisit Santaland.

“People ask for it back. ‘Fully Committed’ is a great show, but people really love ‘Santaland.’ One of the most amazing things to me is that last year was our fourth year of doing the show and we had better sales than we’ve ever had. I mean, we’ve always done well with ‘Santaland,’ but pretty much every show sold out last year,” Benington says.

Parmley relocated to New York City four years ago, but still returns in December to perform the show with the company that he co-founded. He and Benington, the company’s artistic director, have seen the audience expand from die-hard fans to a broader audience as the production’s popularity – and that of Sedaris himself – continues to rise.

“Back in...2000, we did ‘Santaland’ for the first time and it was a very NPR crowd...very sassy and artsy,” Benington says. “And last year, they were just like regular folk, which is really exciting for us.”

It’s not hard to understand why more and more people are falling in love with the writer’s witty observations on human nature. His piece touches on people’s irrational obsession with a perfect photo with Santa, the belief that they’re the first ones to come up with an obvious joke and the humiliation of being reduced to a Santaland elf.

The director and star only fell in love with it themselves shortly before the production. Set and costume designer Rodney Cuellar suggested the play, and according to Benington, “I said, OK. And I hadn’t even read it.”

Meanwhile, Parmley, who was in a play in Berkeley, Calif., had only recently learned of Sedaris after a fellow cast member handed him a copy of the writer’s essay collection Naked because Parmley reminded her of the writer. “I read it cover to cover within the next two days. And then, like, three or four days later Roger called me and said, ‘Do you have any interest in doing this thing by David Sedaris?’”

The stage script, adapted by Joe Montello, reproduces the original’s prose verbatim, but does cut out and slightly re-arrange some of the material. The most significant departure from the original essay is the removal of a key scene in which our put-upon elf encounters a role reversal. Looking at a box of plastic eyeballs, he learns that his own idea of a laugh riot is another man’s tired, oft-repeated joke. Without the scene, the piece loses some of the depth beyond the laughter. “It does put it into perspective and in some ways make it more human,” says Benington.

“He’s in the position of one of the masses that come to Santaland that he has so much disdain for. He thinks exactly like everyone else,” Parmley says, adding that he thinks that Montello cut the segment in an attempt to confine all the events to Santaland.

Eyeball scene or not, Montello’s script includes a liberating lack of stage direction. Those who’ve seen the production may be surprised to learn that the props, like a joint our elf hero lights up, weren’t in the original adaptation. “On the pages of the script, there is one stage direction, which is he changes into his elf costume. So what we have enjoyed so much about the show is finding ways to be really inventive about telling the story that makes it a theatrical experience, as opposed to reading the book at home,” says Benington. This meant even livening the one present stage direction, turning the wardrobe change into a burlesque number.

While Parmley knows the material solidly, the company still runs full rehearsals each year so that he and Benington can explore new interpretations of his character and the different characters whom Sedaris quotes. “The thing with this script is, he’s sharing his life experience, obviously with a lot of fantasy and his own point of view mixed in. That’s one of the reasons why I enjoy doing the script over and over,” Parmley says. “There’s no end to the depth which you can experience as an actor.”

Parmley says that the deadpan readings from Sedaris on the NPR recording are hilarious because he lets you imagine who the characters are, but that as a stage actor, it’s his job to embody them. “There may be five or six different ways to go with it, and that’s part of the fun too. One character one year can be saying the exact same thing next year, but be completely different,” Parmley says.

One of the newly emphasized elements this year is the hero’s angst. “What leads him to this job in Santaland is desperation. Todd’s lived in New York. It’s a good place to experience that. I’m pushing Todd to explore more of that anxiety and fear of being without a job or skills in New York City,” Benington says. Parmley is also pushing himself, as he hopes to perform the show as an industry showcase in New York City this summer.

But right now, the collaborators are beginning the first weekend of their run, providing a show for those who want a different type of Christmas show. Who are these people? Benington: “Our audience goes for beer afterwards.”