‘Christmas Carol' stars will
take flight at arts center

It's hard to make it through the holidays without running into at least one Scrooge and a few Tiny Tims.

"A Christmas Carol" is all over the place - on TV and local stages.

Maybe that's because the story's message is as vital today as it was when Charles Dickens wrote his "little Christmas story" in 1843, says Alan Osburn, who directs a musical adaptation of the tale that opens tonight. The Fine Arts Center Theatre Company production runs through Dec. 21.

"You know, it's not about shopping. It's not about malls," says Osburn of the tale, which Dickens called "a whimsical sort of masque intended to awaken loving and forbearing thoughts."

"Dickens felt that Christmas was a time of rebirth," he says, "a time to gather together and figure out we did wrong and do it over.

"I think that's why (audiences) keep coming back. I think it's the rebirth factor."

Although the adaptation by Academy Award-winner Michel Legrand and Sheldon Harnick, a Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning librettist, follows a familiar path, some new elements have been added to the $50,000-plus production.

"So, last year both the director and the set designer said, ‘Can we fly next year?'" Osburn says. "I said no."

He relented, though, adding the feat, which cost several thousand dollars, through funding from the Curtain Call Society, an organization that supports the theater company.
Osburn laughs.

"When we were thinking about doing the flying, all the tech people said, ‘Don't get a big guy. One thing you don't want to do is get a big guy,'" he says of the actor playing Scrooge. "We ended up getting a big guy."

That's John Rogerson, a seasoned actor who has worked the boards in cities like Kansas City and Chicago. These days he spends his days as a Colorado Springs elementary school principal. Rogerson is joined by a cast of 27, many of whom played roles in last year's production.

Those connections neatly fit Dickens' notion of Christmas as a homecoming, Osburn says.

"I'm a huge fan of local talent. I've worked in regional theaters all over, and I've been the new guy that was brought in from New York. The grumblings among the locals was quite loud."

He laughs again. This production, he says, was going to be about familiar faces.

"With ‘A Christmas Carol,' I specifically wanted to make it about coming together."


THE BACK STORY

Charles Dickens started writing "A Christmas Carol" in October 1843, finishing it about a month later. After feuding with publishers, he financed the printing himself, ordering lavish binding, gilt edging and hand-colored illustrations by John Leech. The initial run of 6,000 books sold out in eight days. Many consider it one of Dickens' best loved works.

DETAILS
‘A CHRISTMAS CAROL'

When: Opens today, 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays through Dec. 21, family matinees 2 p.m. Dec. 13 and 20.
Where: Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St.
Cost: $26-$35 or $18-$25 family matinees; www.csfineartscenter.org or 634-5583