It's hard to believe that a scant 20 years ago we were putting together the first annual Hippodrome production of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol in a warehouse on Highway 441.  Little did we know in 1978 that our little diversion devised both to keep us busy during the traditionally theatrically dark month of December and to collect food for the salvation Army would become a runaway hit Gainesville tradition.
 

As far as I know, I am the only person or thing to have appeared in all twenty Hippodrome productions of A Christmas Carol, with the exception of an enormous soft-sculpture prop turkey , which has been dutifully borne onto the stage by legions of poulterer's sons year after year.  I played Bob Cratchit and doubled as various ghosts for the first twelve years and was promoted to Scrooge for the past eight.  Having said this, I must state that I could  not possibly have appeared in all twenty productions, because mathematically, that would make me a middle-aged man, which, of course, is a preposterous notion. But mathematics notwithstanding, I would like to share with you some of my memories of A Christmas Carols Past.
 
 

People who are now adults have grown up attending A Christmas Carol every year.  The very first Tiny Tim, Justin Davis, is now a very adult man of 26!  Over the years the show has been expanded, condensed, readapted, inflated into a full-blown singing and dancing musical, and reduced back down to its essential elements, and now Mary Hausch's current adaptation adds a vibrant new  dimension with Jacob Marley as the story's narrator.
 
 

 Various special effects have been added over the years:  a terrifying flying Ghost of Jacob Marley which zooms menacingly over the heads of the audience (How do they do that?!), a mysterious  tombstone that chases the hapless Ebenezer Scrooge around the stage, and a Christmas goose dinner that magically transforms into bare bones in an instant.
 

The A Christmas Carol blooper reel, if it existed, would be hilarious. In an early production, Jerry Mason as the Spirit of Christmas Present, fell off a platform  backstage and became upended and completely and helplessly tangled in his robes and some backstage curtains.  His involuntary vocalizations while trying to free himself treated young ears in the audience to a stream of decidedly unDickensian epithets.

One year Martha Williams as Martha Cratchit exited to retrieve the Cratchit Christmas pudding, the arrival of which is preceded by a fever-pitched anticipatory buildup of epic proportions by the onstage Cratchits. Backstage, finding  the beloved pudding missing from the prop table, Martha returned empty-handed to her eager onstage family with the horrifying and depressing extemporaneous explanation, "A dog ate it!"  We other Cratchits bit our lips and continued stoically on with the scene, minus our prized pudding that night.
 

Sometime in the 80s Kevin Rainesberger as Scrooge awakened from his disturbing but edifying dream and darted backstage to make a quick change whereby Scrooge instantly dons his street clothes to greet the citizens of London as a new man.  On this particular night the dresser in the incredible haste of the change jerked Scrooge's stocking cap off and the Scrooge wig came off with it.  So Scrooge greeted the astonished Londoners sporting Mr. Rainesberger's stylish 1980s coiffure.  Scrooge was a new man indeed!
 

Some of the best stories about A Christmas Carol can't be told because they would reveal some of the show's special efffects secrets.  Suffice it to say that Marleys flying Ghost has veered from his flight plan more than once!
 

Please come join us for A Christmas Carol this year, whether it's your 20th time or your first.  We promise you a hilarious, moving and heartwarming good time.

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From the  Hippodrome Newsletter,