Scrooge

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.

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.

It's that Scrooge time of year again, and a host of productions of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" gets off to a festive start in Chambersburg, Pa., next Thursday when Baltimoreans Carl Schurr and Wil Love stage Caledonia Theatre Company's ninth annual rendition of the holiday classic.Love will reprise his portrayal of penny-pinching Scrooge, under the direction of Schurr, who also adapted the text and plays a small role. Each performance is preceded by a carol concert that begins 30 minutes before curtain time.

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.

It is often said good things come in small packages. Certainly this is true of the impressive production of the musical "Scrooge" playing at the Spotlighters Theatre tomorrow through Sunday.Adapted by Leslie Bricusse from the beloved Charles Dickens story, "A Christmas Carol," the play calls for a large cast and numerous children. Considering the confined area, the Spotlighters have met all stage requirements nicely, relying on simple props and the fertile imagination of the audience.With the group's limited resources there are still some very good and spooky special effects.

It's deck-the-halls time, and the Spotlighters Theatre is humming bah-humbug again. "Scrooge," the stage version of Leslie Bricusse's 1970 movie musical of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," returns to the St. Paul Street theater tomorrow.This year's production is directed by Ron Gregory, who also plays the title role. Among the other cast members are Mitch Nathan -- who doubles as set designer -- in the role of Bob Cratchit, Bill Rucker as Jacob Marley and Cori Proctor as Tiny Tim.Show times at the Spotlighters, 817 St. Paul St., are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Sundays, through Dec. 19. Tickets are $10. Call 410-752-1225.

'Scrooge'When: Today and Saturday at 8:30 p.m., Sunday 2:30 p.m.Where: Spotlighters, 817 St. Paul St.Tickets: $7 & $8. (Tickets to all performances are sold out.)Call: 752-1225.*** Most productions of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" are syrupy enough to rot your teeth. There's no question that Dickens could ooze sentimentality, but his writing also had its grisly side; some of it is downright macabre.The Spotlighters' production of "Scrooge" -- the stage version of Leslie Bricusse's 1970 movie musical, based on the Dickens' classic -- is not just for kids.

It's beginning to look a little like Christmas at Anne Arundel government offices.Very little.There won't be any candles in the window this year. No garland. No tinsel. No wreaths. No poinsettias. No parties, unless workers footthe bill themselves."This year, we're doing practically nothing," said Louise Hayman, County Executive Robert R. Neall's press secretary.In previous years, there have been candles in nearly every window, five artificial and six live wreaths at the Arundel Center in Annapolis, an 8-foot wreath at Arundel Center North in Glen Burnie and"angel trees" in 10 buildings.

For the 15th consecutive year, the SCROOGE Society is hoping you will dramatically curtail your Christmas gift-giving -- or at least your holiday spending -- and give more thought to the meaning of the season. Stop wasting mega-sums on stuffnobody wants, says SCROOGE, and focus on the spirit of giving."Remember," says the society's 1994 newsletter, "that a merry Christmas isn't for sale in any store for any amount of money."The Society to Curtail Ridiculous, Outrageous and Ostentatious Gift Exchanges -- SCROOGE -- was founded in 1979 and is still run single-handedly by Chuck Langham, a retired writer of Army technical manuals.

I bumped into Dr. Scrooge, the psychotherapist, at the ice cream parlor on my way home from seeing ''Sleepless in Seattle.'' He too had just seen the film, so we discussed it as we sat out front eating our ice cream cones.I said I enjoyed it, and that nearly everyone else did too, judging by the sunshine on the faces of the people leaving the building.Dr. Scrooge agreed it was entertaining but he didn't like the lesson it was teaching about love. In fact, for young people he thought the film would be ''a disaster.

Composer Bob Christianson is nothing if not versatile. He wrote a lot of pulsating music that accompanied episodes about several, um, energetic women in New York on the HBO series "Sex and the City. " He has provided themes for Travel Channel's "Mysteries of the Museum" and "Inside the Grand Canyon," and the Military Channel's "The Day After D-Day," to name a few more. His credits also include themes for sports programs and promos on ABC and ESPN. "Which is funny," Christianson said, "because I am not a sports person.

Newt Gingrich wants to pay poor kids to clean toilets. And all of the right people are horrified. The Nation says Mr. Gingrich is running on "a platform that seems to have been written by the unreformed Ebenezer Scrooge. " The editors of the Newark Star-Ledger proclaim Mr. Gingrich wants to "bring back the days of Oliver Twist. " The host of "Meet the Press," David Gregory, suggests Mr. Gingrich's take on the inner-city poor is a "grotesque distortion. " This controversy started last month at Harvard, when Mr. Gingrich suggested in a speech that perhaps the best way to break the cycle of poverty in inner cities is to break the culture of poverty that sustains it by, among other things, paying kids to do janitorial work.

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.

Bowie Community Theatre caps its three-play season of comedies with Daniel Sullivan's Inspecting Carol, a backstage farce about a struggling dysfunctional regional theater company's problems with its annual cash-cow production of Dickens' A Christmas Carol. The fictional New Brunswick Soapbox Players count on A Christmas Carol to help finish their season in the black. Beset by compounding problems at this approaching holiday season, artistic director Zorah Bloch deals with directing domineering actor Larry Vauxhall, who plays Scrooge, planning to turn Dickens' classic into a political statement.

Well, this is shaping up to be a cheery holiday season, isn't it? A recent Consumer Reports survey said 76 percent of respondents claimed they will cut back on holiday spending. And The New York Times said sales at the nation's largest retailers "fell off a cliff" last month and that this could be the worst Christmas shopping season in decades. Only deep discounters like Wal-Mart reported any gains, and even those are slashing prices to get shoppers in the door. Right now stores are so desperate for your business, they'll practically send a car for you. I got a circular in the mail from a chain store inviting me to a "Big One Day Sale" next Friday.

And so Mr. Scrooge kept Christmas in his heart and became a friend and benefactor to all and also got his hair and eyebrows trimmed. He made Bob Cratchit a partner, and an orthopedic surgeon fixed Tiny Tim's gimpy leg so he could jump and run, and Scrooge & Marley became ScratchitInc and got out of the countinghouse business and into venture capital. It financed the conversion of old factories and mills into luxury apartments and reaped fabulous profits, which Mr. Scrooge wanted to give away.

Not only did Charles Dickens give his holiday story, A Christmas Carol, a musical name, he called the chapters "staves." So even though other Dickens books - Oliver Twist and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, for example - have been turned into stage musicals, A Christmas Carol has always seemed the most likely candidate. There have certainly been more than a few Carol musicals over the years (a review of a localized version appears on Page 3E). But of the many Christmas Carols I have seen, the new production of Leslie Bricusse's 1992 Scrooge - adapted, in turn, from the 1970 Albert Finney movie - is among the most impressive.

A sure way to brighten spirits for the holiday season is to see Chesapeake Music Hall's current production of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." Not your ordinary Victorian pageant, this one has Doug Yetter's delightful score, is bursting with warm spirits and is filled with innovative special effects.Arriving a week before the 18th annual Colonial Players' version that opens tonight, Chesapeake Music Hall's production, which runs through Dec. 26, is a five-year tradition. This version had its 1992 premiere in New York with Yetter's music and Michael Hulett's lyrics.

A holiday show with a twist, Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol tells the classic Dickens story from the perspective of Scrooge's partner, Marley. Playing Friday and Saturday in the Village Dinner Theatre of the Patriot Point Theatre at Gettysburg, the original tale -- part comedy, part drama -- was penned by playwright and actor Tom Mula. Showtimes are at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Patriot Point, 241 Steinwehr Ave., Gettysburg, Pa. Tickets are $29.50 for adults and $26.50 for seniors, students, members of the military (past and present)

Young actors dressed in 19th-century garb marched to the stage, singing traditional carols. Beggars and bankers, peasants and nobles all mixed in a crowd. Several of the characters were familiar, present in multiple incarnations: Tiny Tim Cratchet as the child with a crutch, and as a mischievous young man; Ebenezer Scrooge as a youth and as an elderly man. It's the opening scene of Remembering Uncle Scrooge, a two-act musical that debuts this week in downtown Bel Air. The actors, in character and costume, hope to mingle with the audience at the dinner theater, the first event in the refurbished Lt. Gen. Milton A. Reckord Armory on North Main Street.