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12/07/2016 11:01 PMThis holiday season marks the final run of Bill Raymond as Ebenezer Scrooge in Hartford Stage’s annual production of A Christmas Carol—A Ghost Story of Christmas. It will be the 17th time Raymond has played the role before theatergoers, which number well above a quarter million.
The perennial began during artistic director Michael Wilson’s first season in 1998. Wilson had previously adapted and staged the Dickens classic first for the Alley Theatre in Houston in 1990, then produced and directed the show at Hartford Stage. Wilson’s version continues at both theaters as well as at several other theaters across America.
Christmas Past
Raymond says he didn’t want the job at first and had an argument with his agent over the offer “and he said you absolutely have to do this job so I eventually said ‘Yes.’ I remember what [stage manager] Wendy Beaton later told me. She said, ‘You’re going to love this—and you’ll be the most popular person in Hartford.’ And Wendy was right. I did love it. Whenever I walked down the street in downtown Hartford people would say hello and thank me and often in restaurants folks would even applaud. The people of Hartford just took this production to heart. Some families have seen the show every year and I’ve seen their children grown up, too.
“I never thought I’d play it so long. But I remember that first year Noble Shropshire [who plays Marley/Mrs. Dilber] saying, ‘You’re going to be coming back again and again and you’ll be doing this for a long time.’ But I didn’t think so.”
A favorite moment?
“There are so many, but one of my most memorable moments came about three or four years ago during a show when a little boy in the audience—he must have been about five and he was sitting with his mother about three rows up—and towards the end of the show he started saying quite loudly, ‘Mr. Scrooge! Mr. Scrooge!’ He just wouldn’t stop so I went over to him, said hello and how are you?, and then I brought him down stage and picked him up on my shoulders and I finished the rest of my speech and the show. It was just so wonderful.”
Christmas Present
Has his Ebenezer changed over the years?
“Scrooge has changed because I’ve changed so he’s gotten a lot older, and sillier and more pathetic, not unlike the person playing him. But the play has deepened and grown in so many ways with the cast—many of them who have been with the shows for years now.
Christmas Future
“What I’ll miss about not doing the show again is the work itself, the humor, Michel Wilson’s brilliance, the camaraderie of the cast and the great people of Hartford Stage, my good friends there on stage and off and the joy of it all.
“Of course I’ll miss it. I miss it already. But it’s time for me to pay a little more attention to my home life because I’ve missed a lot of Christmas seasons with my family. I have two sons and a daughter and now I have two daughters-in-law and a grandchild who is four. I really need to be around a little bit more at that time of the year. And now I can plan for Christmastime 2017. But it’s been a glorious time at Hartford Stage.”
A Christmas Carol—A Ghost Story of Christmas runs through Friday, Dec. 30 at Hartford Stage, 50 Church Street, Hartford. For more information, and to check on ticket availability, visit www.hartfordstage.org.
Frank Rizzo is a freelance journalist who lives in New Haven and New York City. He has been writing about theater and the arts in Connecticut for nearly 40 years.