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The Alley’s Interim Artistic Director James Black has been working at the Alley for over thirty years as a member of the Resident Acting Company and a frequent director. During the season he curated as Interim Artistic Director, we are delighted to present a series of essays from him about his career and his memories of the Alley.

There are a handful of stories that hours of rehearsal and a thousand have real magic in them. In their performances in a variety of telling, something primal is rattled roles, his testament of personal in the listener. Something rumbles redemption and compassion for deep in the DNA. The story can your fellow man finds new ways to illuminate an unexpected truth move me. This year the message each time it is heard. Its message promises to resonate stronger than constantly reveals itself and grows ever as I revisit the role I once with you, becoming more personal played as a much younger man. and profound with each passing year. Like many people of my age, my first experience with this A Christmas Carol is that story for story wasn’t the novella, but the me. I have had the unique and annual holiday broadcast of the rewarding experience of either Mr. Magoo cartoon. The hour- performing in or directing Michael long adaptation featured Magoo Wilson’s stage adaptation of as an actor playing Scrooge on Charles Dickens’ tale on an annual Broadway. The scenes of the basis for nearly half of my adult play itself are remarkably faithful life. It’s not a passing Christmas to Dickens with long passages encounter, like a singular viewing of dialogue lifted directly from of It’s a Wonderful Life . It’s a total the book. To this day, there are and complete ten-week immersion certain lines that I can only hear in into Dickens' genius and his their nasal, Jim Backus cadence. wisdom of the heart. Every year Over the years, I discovered other since 1989, through countless versions of the story with other

9 PLAYBILL equally distinctive Scrooges. There was the stingy nobility of Reginald Owen, the eccentric explosive joy of Alistair Sim, the hunched denial of Albert Finney, and the towering self-loathing of George C Scott. Four drastically different, yet valid interpretations by four great actors that prove the role of Scrooge can be as rich, rewarding, and complex as any in Shakespeare. For an actor, it’s a journey that combines the emotional scope of Lear with the ghosts and prophecy of Hamlet and the Scottish play, and its conclusion has all of the redemption and forgiveness of A Winter’s Tale.

My first experience as an actor Top: James Black as Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas A Christmas Carol Carol, 1992. Photo by Jim Caldwell. with at the Alley Bottom: James Black as Ebenezer Scrooge and JeArey Bean as Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol, 2005. was a brief stint playing Christmas Photo by T Charles Erickson. Present. Then suddenly, I found each trip around the sun added myself promoted at the age of 32 another thin, but palpable layer of to Ebenezer himself. Technically truth to my portrayal. I had the chops, and after an hour-long session in front of the It’s rare for a stage actor to have makeup mirror, I cut a reasonable a relationship with a character for late middle age silhouette. But the such an extended time. It’s usually foundation underneath the paint limited to several months - the and grey wig was still my youth length of the rehearsal period and with its limited concept of regret the run. It’s a brief but intense fling and loss. My makeup pallet was complete with regrets, “what ifs” full of colors. My life pallet, not and “what might have beens.” No so much. As a result, those early sooner do you get to know the performances were probably more person and then, suddenly, they’re effective than affecting. More gone. If you are lucky, you will get sleight of hand than real magic. the rare opportunity to revisit the But I had the great privilege of character, usually in a different playing the role from the early setting, with different people, but nineties until the early aughts and you will pick up right where you 10 PLAYBILL life event, every passing season, adding another layer of poignancy and depth. But as Dickens reminds us, life is made of ever so many partings welded together. Last year, Jeff and his family moved to Philadelphia, and I suddenly find myself at sixty getting reacquainted with an old friend.

So here I am. Returning to a role I first played over a quarter of

James Black as Mrs. Dilber in A Christmas Carol, 2008. a century ago. This time, age Photo by John Whaley. appropriate with no make- left off. You’ll know their secrets, up to hide behind and a life their strengths and weaknesses, pallet too heavy to hold in one where they will carry you, and hand. A character and an actor where they’ll let you down. But simultaneously looking back you will also be bringing to on thirty years of life-mistakes, the relationship what you have regrets, and yet still, a promise of lived and learned since your last redemption. A circle comes to a encounter. More colors on your close. pallet.

I stepped away from Scrooge in the early 2000s but remained In the span of eternity, man’s a part of Carol by directing the life is not very long. So each remount of the production each day, each hour, each minute holiday. For several years, I must be cherished. You cannot combined my directing duties have a wondrous and what with playing the double role of you call profitable life if you Mrs. Dilber/Jacob Marley. By do not treasure its brevity. this time, the amazing Jeffrey – Christmas Present Bean had taken over the role of Scrooge and he would make it his own for over a decade as God bless us, everyone. well. I began experiencing Carol from an objective perspective as – Tiny Tim I watched Jeff grow exponentially in the play over those years. Every

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