A Christmas favorite with a candy-coated twist: ‘Elf the Musical’ kicks off the holiday fun this weekend at the Oakdale

“Elf the Musical,” based on the modern classic Will Ferrell flick, has become a Christmas season staple, touring every year to one Connecticut theater or another. This week, it’s tobogganing into the Toyota Oakdale Theater in Wallingford for a whopping four performances over two days on Friday and Saturday.

“Elf the Musical” happens only around Christmastime, but this rendition has a face familiar to Oakdale audiences. The actor playing Buddy the Elf is the same one who played Willie Wonka in the musical “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” which played the theater in May.

Buddy is the “cotton-headed ninny muggins” who stuffs cookies into VCRs, eats from the four basic food groups — “candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup” — and is “technically” a human but was raised by elves. He leaves the North Pole in search of his biological father, who turns out to be a sour New York businessman named Walter Hobbs.

“Elf the Musical,” with a book by Bob Martin and Thomas Meehan and songs by Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin, takes the basic plot of the film and adds a dozen songs, including “Sparklejollytwinklejingley,” “Nobody Cares About Santa” and “In the Way.” The musical, which had a brief Broadway run in 2010-11, was originally directed by Casey Nicholaw, who has also been represented with the tours of “Mean Girls” and “Aladdin,” which recently played the Shubert. Nicholaw, Skla and Beguelin had a post-”Elf” Broadway hit with “The Prom.”

It is the first time the show has toured in three years since the beginning of the COVID pandemic.

Buddy the Elf was played by Will Ferrell in the original 2003 movie, one of the comedian’s signature film roles. Having played Willie Wonka, a character portrayed on film by Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp, Cody Garcia already has a perspective on taking a role associated with a famous movie star.

“I am in a good space with myself, knowing that this ‘Elf’ is not the movie ‘Elf,’ and that I am not Will Ferrell,” they said. “I pay tribute to Will Ferrell, but I am not him.” One helpful similarity is the actor’s imposing height: They are 6 feet, 4 inches, for that unconventional elf stature that is central to the show’s humor.

“It’s my second portrayal of an iconic character,” says Garcia. “I was excited to do Buddy after doing Willie Wonka. I felt right for it. I knew I could bring my own style.”

They weren’t “that into” the movie “Elf” as a kid, Garcia said, preferring “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” and the 1997 flying-cow cartoon “Annabelle’s Wish.” A previous Christmas live stage experience for Garcia was appearing in the family holiday melodrama “Home for the Holidays” at a theater in San Antonio, Texas, where they grew up.

Garcia knew Connecticut before musical theater tours brought them here. They attended the Boston Conservatory of the Arts, whose music theater students (as well as those from Connecticut’s Hartt School) are often tapped to perform in staged readings at the Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals in East Haddam. Garcia performed in a reading of “Milo at the Movies” at the Goodspeed Opera House in 2010.

Garcia is new to this annual tour of “Elf,” produced by Networks Presentations, but some other key actors in the show have done it before. Mark Fishback is returning to the role of Santa Claus, Garcia explained, because Fishback “is Santa Claus.” Caitlin Lester-Sams is touring for the fourth time as Emily, the central female character in the show. Garcia and Lester-Sams also worked together on the “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” tour.

Another “Elf” connection has to do with pointy-toed footwear. When getting costumed for the role, he noticed he was wearing elf shoes previously worn by Spencer Glass, a New York actor, teacher and podcaster who’d appeared in the ensemble of a 2015 “Elf the Musical” tour. “Fun fact: I knew Spencer Glass!,” Garcia said. “I went to college with him. I was literally stepping into Spencer Glass’ shoes.”

It is the sort of offbeat Christmas miracle suited to the silly, giddy holiday hilarity that is “Elf.”

“Elf the Musical” plays at the Toyota Oakdale Theater, 95 South Turnpike Road, Wallingford, Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 10 a.m., 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. $31-$155.50. livenation.com.

Reach reporter Christopher Arnott at carnott@courant.com.