Dickens' tale retold with music, song

“A Christmas Carol” has become so embedded in our cultural DNA that it’s easy to take Charles Dickens’ warm tale of spiritual redemption for granted.

But the Fine Arts Center Theatre Company’s new production of the holiday classic promises to add something new: Music by Michel Legrand and script and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick.

“It’s a lovely re-telling of the story,” said director Susan Dawn Carson. “It has humor, but it also has plenty of darkness, which appeals to me. It’s a little like being in your own nightmare.”

If you’ve ever been to a movie, odds are you’ve heard Legrand’s music. He’s scored over 130 of them since the 1950s, earning 13 Oscar nominations and taking home the award three times — for “The Thomas Crown Affair,” “Summer of ’42” and “Yentl.”

Harnick’s Broadway hits include “She Loves Me,” the Pulitzer-prize-winning “Fiorello,” and a little ditty called “Fiddler on the Roof.”

And yet this 1982 collaboration hasn’t quite found a niche on the stage — despite critical praise, especially for Harnick’s contribution.

Carson says this has its pluses.

“There’s no recording,” she said. “Nobody’s doing a version of what they’ve seen or heard.”

The 26-member cast — in roughly 65 roles — also features both familiar and unfamiliar.

It’s led by Bob Rais as Ebenezer Scrooge. Rais is a former theater regular who recently returned to Colorado Springs after stints in Cincinnati and Sun Valley, Idaho — where, in one of those it’s-a-small-world moments, he got to know Carson.

“It’s beautiful how the words and music come out of the story,” he said of the piece, as Scrooge goes from being dragged along by the ghosts to being an active participant.

The rest of the cast reads like a list winners, nominees, and future nominees for local acting awards — including David Hastings and Sally Hybl, who won the Pikes Peak Arts Council’s 2007 best actor and actress awards. Others include Amy Brooks, Julian Bucknall, Steve Emily, Halee Towne — another recent returnee after studying musical theater in London — and Marco Robinson, the 16-year-old phenomenon who recently starred in the center’s production of “Brighton Beach Memoirs.”

“Wait until you hear Marco sing,” said Brooks.

Carson said the show contains surprises, even for those who know the basic story, because Dickens’ original is so rich and complex.

For instance, there’s more weight than usual given to Scrooge’s relationship with Belle, his youthful love.

“With the young Scrooge and the young Belle, we see his life unfold as it might have been,” said Carson.

Brooks said that the show was a good blend of familiar and unfamiliar.

“It’s written as though you’re sitting by a fireside, listening to a story,” she said. “There’s pleasure in the familiarity, but it doesn’t cease to surprise.”

DETAILS

The Fine Arts Center Theatre Company presents “A Christmas Carol”

When: Opens today; 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and -Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, until Dec. 23

Where: Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St.

Tickets: $28-$30; 634-5583 or csfineartscenter.org

Also: Special family matinees on 3 p.m. Saturdays a condensed version of the show designed for families at a reduced rate ($25 adults).