A scene from The Soul Menders, a play by Patti Flather that opens Thursday in Whitehorse. (CBC)

The world premiere of a play by a Yukon playwright opens Thursday in Whitehorse.

The Soul Menders is a contemporary Christmas story written by Whitehorse playwright Patti Flather.

The story focuses on how people move through difficult and hectic times, and become richer from the experience, she told CBC News.

The play was revised right up to the last minute by Flather, a playwright and screenwriter whose previous works include Sixty Below and Where the River Meets the Sea.

"I'd come back and sit on it for a while and think about it and then I'd come back and do another draft," Flather said.

"I've been revising it with the director Chris McGregor, who's come up from Vancouver, tweaking it with him and then in the rehearsal hall with real living, breathing actors who are bringing these characters to life."

The characters in The Soul Menders, who are trying to figure out what contemporary Christmas means, include a bitter divorcee who would just as soon cancel Christmas, her son who is creating his own unique tribute to the holidays, a New Age spiritualist and a homesick Iranian immigrant.

"There's some lovely Christmas theatre traditions, but I there there is room for a contemporary Christmas story," Flather said.

McGregor said beneath the comedy is a hopeful story about fractured families struggling to become whole at Christmas. He hopes audiences will connect with that message.

"What am I doing in my life that is holding me back from being who I really want to be or holding me back from solving that relationship? … In this play, there is all of that — there's miscommunication and finally [understanding]," McGregor said.

"So everyone has an arc in this play and I want people, sitting here, to go 'I recognize that in myself,' " he said.

The Soul Menders runs Nov. 19 to Dec. 5 and is being co-presented by Gwaandak Theatre.

With files from CBC's Mark Evans