Bob Cratchit

WASHINGTON -- The big news last week was that Santa Claus and Ebenezer Scrooge decided to merge and become one major colossus that would be able to service holiday consumers more efficiently and at less cost than ever before.In a press conference at the North Pole, Scrooge and Claus both said that what they were doing was not merging as much as ''restructuring their organization.''In order to do so, the new company was going to lay off eight reindeer, 10,000 elves and Bob Cratchit, who would be offered a buyout similar to the one AT&T was offering more than 77,000 of its employees this Christmas.

One thing that Ebenezer Scrooge does not get is a good night's sleep. That's because pesky ghosts keep appearing with reminders that he needs to reconsider his grumpy life. Ever since Charles Dickens wrote "A Christmas Carol" in 1843, audiences have enjoyed accompanying Scrooge on his overnight ethical transformation. You have yet another opportunity to ride along in the musical theater version of "A Christmas Carol" that's being festively staged at Toby's Dinner Theatre of Columbia.

If you're on the lookout for someone to give you the Dickens this Christmas season, you'll be pleased to know that the Chesapeake Music Hall has put together a happy and harmonious rendition of A Christmas Carol that will be in production through Dec. 23. Once again, the Music Hall opted for the adaptation written by Sheldon Harnick of Fiddler on the Roof fame, with a pleasantly innocuous score by Michel Legrand tossed in for good measure. While nothing is especially memorable on the musical front, Harnick, St. Nicholas be praised, lets Dickens be Dickens.

Editor: Christmas comes but once a year and the reflections of this year have not been a pretty one for many of us. Like Ebenezer Scrooge, it has been easy to be self-absorbed in our daily survival as our world swirls around us. Like Bob Cratchit, we are equally concerned about keeping our position as we are about our family's future if that position is lost. Scrooge's business was lending money to others by taking ownership of their desires, even though many of his clients could not afford Scrooge's financial entanglements.

The familiar story of Scrooge, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim, mixed with clowning, tumbling, juggling, dancing, singing, even a little magic -- that's A Christmas Carol as performed at Howard Community College. This variation on Charles Dickens' novel was created many years ago for a theater in Los Angeles. The adapter, Doris Baizley, conceived the idea of presenting a Victorian English story in a Renaissance Italian style. Commedia dell'arte troupes were popular in Italy in the 16th century and later.

And so Mr. Scrooge kept Christmas in his heart and made his clerk Bob Cratchit a partner and found an orthopedic surgeon who fixed Tiny Tim's gimpy leg. Scrooge was a friend and benefactor to all, and he also got his hair and eyebrows trimmed and bought a new suit, a blue pinstripe. People called him Ben. When he died, the entire city mourned. The firm of Scrooge & Cratchit became ScratchitInc, and it got out of the counting house business and into condominiums. Old blacking factories and woolen mills and foundries were converted to luxury apartments with wood-burning fireplaces, eat-in kitchens with marble countertops, and hot tubs on the balconies.

The stingiest part of 2nd Star Productions' Scrooge, the Stingiest Man in Town is its pace - it's the speediest-moving show imaginable with an abundantly talented cast. Director Jeffrey Hitaffer says in his program notes that his objective was "to make this three-act show not seem like three acts," a goal he handily achieves. It boasts near-Broadway perfection in a show having zero dark time between at least 11 scene changes - from a London street to Scrooge's office to his bedroom to Fezziwig's office to the living rooms of Bob Cratchit's family and nephew Fred's, to a cemetery.

Charles Dickens' sometime literary heir, John Irving, once noted, "Each Christmas, we are assaulted with a new [version of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"]: indeed, we're fortunate if all we see is the delightful Alastair Sim." Robert Zemeckis' new digital version, starring Jim Carrey, is an assault, a horrible mismatch of technique and story. But the Sim version is a delight - and it's at the Senator for the holidays. Sim starred as Ebenezer Scrooge in a 1951 British production, written by Noel Langley (who co-wrote "The Wizard of Oz" and wrote and directed "The Pickwick Papers")

Charles Dickens' sometime literary heir, John Irving, once noted, "Each Christmas, we are assaulted with a new [version of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"]: indeed, we're fortunate if all we see is the delightful Alastair Sim." Robert Zemeckis' new digital version, starring Jim Carrey, is an assault, a horrible mismatch of technique and story. But the Sim version is a delight - and it's at the Senator for the holidays. Sim starred as Ebenezer Scrooge in a 1951 British production, written by Noel Langley (who co-wrote "The Wizard of Oz" and wrote and directed "The Pickwick Papers")

It's time to kindle our Christmas spirits by catching a performance of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" — a classic that first appeared in 1843 and is now a perennial theater favorite each holiday season. Pasadena Theatre Company is renewing its own holiday tradition of presenting "A Christmas Carol" for a total of six performances at Chesapeake Arts Center in Brooklyn Park. Set in Victorian London, "A Christmas Carol" tells the story of stingy merchant Scrooge, who chases carolers away in the play's opening scene and in another Christmas Eve scene counts the number of coals his beleaguered clerk, Bob Cratchit, burns to take the bitter chill from his office.

It's time to kindle our Christmas spirits by catching a performance of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" — a classic that first appeared in 1843 and is now a perennial theater favorite each holiday season. Pasadena Theatre Company is renewing its own holiday tradition of presenting "A Christmas Carol" for a total of six performances at Chesapeake Arts Center in Brooklyn Park. Set in Victorian London, "A Christmas Carol" tells the story of stingy merchant Scrooge, who chases carolers away in the play's opening scene and in another Christmas Eve scene counts the number of coals his beleaguered clerk, Bob Cratchit, burns to take the bitter chill from his office.

A 2009 'Christmas Carol' Christmas comes but once a year, and the reflections of 2009 have not been pretty for many of us. Like Ebenezer Scrooge, it has been easy to be self-absorbed in our daily survival as our world swirls around us. Like Bob Cratchit, we are equally concerned about keeping our positions as we are about our families' future if those positions are lost. Scrooge's business was lending money to others by taking ownership of their desires, even though many of his clients could not afford Scrooge's financial entanglements, a case not far removed from the folly of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's spending binge that put us all in debt for decades to come.

Christmas comes but once a year, and the reflections of 2009 have not been pretty for many of us. Like Ebenezer Scrooge, it has been easy to be self-absorbed in our daily survival as our world swirls around us. Like Bob Cratchit, we are equally concerned about keeping our positions as we are about our families' future if those positions are lost. Scrooge's business was lending money to others by taking ownership of their desires, even though many of his clients could not afford Scrooge's financial entanglements, a case not far removed from the folly of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's spending binge that put us all in debt for decades to come.

Charles Dickens' sometime literary heir, John Irving, once noted, "Each Christmas, we are assaulted with a new [version of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"]: indeed, we're fortunate if all we see is the delightful Alastair Sim." Robert Zemeckis' new digital version, starring Jim Carrey, is an assault, a horrible mismatch of technique and story. But the Sim version is a delight - and it's at the Senator for the holidays. Sim starred as Ebenezer Scrooge in a 1951 British production, written by Noel Langley (who co-wrote "The Wizard of Oz" and wrote and directed "The Pickwick Papers")

Charles Dickens' sometime literary heir, John Irving, once noted, "Each Christmas, we are assaulted with a new [version of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"]: indeed, we're fortunate if all we see is the delightful Alastair Sim." Robert Zemeckis' new digital version, starring Jim Carrey, is an assault, a horrible mismatch of technique and story. But the Sim version is a delight - and it's at the Senator for the holidays. Sim starred as Ebenezer Scrooge in a 1951 British production, written by Noel Langley (who co-wrote "The Wizard of Oz" and wrote and directed "The Pickwick Papers")

And so Mr. Scrooge kept Christmas in his heart and made his clerk Bob Cratchit a partner and found an orthopedic surgeon who fixed Tiny Tim's gimpy leg. Scrooge was a friend and benefactor to all, and he also got his hair and eyebrows trimmed and bought a new suit, a blue pinstripe. People called him Ben. When he died, the entire city mourned. The firm of Scrooge & Cratchit became ScratchitInc, and it got out of the counting house business and into condominiums. Old blacking factories and woolen mills and foundries were converted to luxury apartments with wood-burning fireplaces, eat-in kitchens with marble countertops, and hot tubs on the balconies.

One thing that Ebenezer Scrooge does not get is a good night's sleep. That's because pesky ghosts keep appearing with reminders that he needs to reconsider his grumpy life. Ever since Charles Dickens wrote "A Christmas Carol" in 1843, audiences have enjoyed accompanying Scrooge on his overnight ethical transformation. You have yet another opportunity to ride along in the musical theater version of "A Christmas Carol" that's being festively staged at Toby's Dinner Theatre of Columbia.

Christmas comes but once a year, and the reflections of 2009 have not been pretty for many of us. Like Ebenezer Scrooge, it has been easy to be self-absorbed in our daily survival as our world swirls around us. Like Bob Cratchit, we are equally concerned about keeping our positions as we are about our families' future if those positions are lost. Scrooge's business was lending money to others by taking ownership of their desires, even though many of his clients could not afford Scrooge's financial entanglements, a case not far removed from the folly of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's spending binge that put us all in debt for decades to come.

The stingiest part of 2nd Star Productions' Scrooge, the Stingiest Man in Town is its pace - it's the speediest-moving show imaginable with an abundantly talented cast. Director Jeffrey Hitaffer says in his program notes that his objective was "to make this three-act show not seem like three acts," a goal he handily achieves. It boasts near-Broadway perfection in a show having zero dark time between at least 11 scene changes - from a London street to Scrooge's office to his bedroom to Fezziwig's office to the living rooms of Bob Cratchit's family and nephew Fred's, to a cemetery.

The familiar story of Scrooge, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim, mixed with clowning, tumbling, juggling, dancing, singing, even a little magic -- that's A Christmas Carol as performed at Howard Community College. This variation on Charles Dickens' novel was created many years ago for a theater in Los Angeles. The adapter, Doris Baizley, conceived the idea of presenting a Victorian English story in a Renaissance Italian style. Commedia dell'arte troupes were popular in Italy in the 16th century and later.