I've Got the Shakes (play)

Jan Leslie Harding, Michael Osano, Mary McBride
"I've Got the Shakes" (1995)
Ontological-Hysteric Theater
Photo: Paula Court

Thirty years ago, I was twenty-six years old and all my ends were loose. My first adventure in self-production was buried in earth, my (first) wife was gone along with half the furniture, and I had a hernia.

That also meant I had a unique amount of freedom, and I also had a hot girlfriend living in Washington Heights. It was winter 1995. I took time off from waiting tables at a pizza restaurant in Lyndhurst, packed a bag, my Macintosh PowerBook, and boarded the Amtrak for a week-long stay in the big city.

There is a special kind of bitter frigidity that is standing on a subway platform during an NYC cold snap. On the street, cold can be an assault, a sudden movement of frozen air can seem so personally insulting, and dangerous. Waiting for a train the air does not move, so just stand and feel yourself in the midst of this unforgiving atmosphere as it affects your exposed extremities, and makes its way in. For me, this was a new New York experience, and entirely alien. But I took comfort in the fact that I was not alone.

We both had colds that week, and took it fairly easy due to my condition (I had an operation scheduled for March, she would join me in Cleveland to take care of me – and move here shortly thereafter) but we saw art and took meals and watched movies and listened to records and attended theater.

For over a quarter century (at that time) a hallmark of the New York new year was a new work written, directed and designed by Richard Foreman and produced by his Ontological-Hysteric Theater Company, located in St. Mark’s Church on the LES. Opening in January 1995, I’ve Got the Shakes was a great revelation to me in a year packed with revelations.

(click to enlarge)

I was seeking out the “next thing” I would attempt, seeking out unusual offerings wherever I happened to be, including Cleveland, too, yeah, and later Chicago, and Minneapolis. This turned out to be the only experience with Foreman (total coincidence and absolute humble-brag, my then-girlfriend/now-wife’s cousin was a Foreman player during the aughts, appearing in Zomboid! and Deep Trance Behavior in Potatoland, among others) and it left me fascinated but flummoxed, amused and uncomfortable.

Shakes centers on the character of Madeline X, a teacher who does not know how or what to teach, the set a deconstructed schoolroom with characters coming and going, without clear intention, as in a dream, a very lucid dream, though never a nightmare.

In spite of the rather small audience space, the (four) actors ere mic'd, so though each spoke in a whisper they were entirely audible. Madeline X herself spoke in a very constrained, high voice. The effect was to make the room, already crowded with detritus, even more claustrophobic. It was so quiet, I was afraid to move, or make a sound.

The dialogue was absurd, amusing in its subversion of expectation, and witty, but I don’t remember laughing. What did it mean? I wasn’t sure, but I was delighted to be confused by unconventional storytelling.

It also served to subvert sensorial sensation. I found myself leaning in, striving for understanding, to follow a thread, to get it, man, when there would come a loud CLANG and all the characters would spin off in different directions.

My wife remembers the audience rake to have been very severe. “I felt like the audience ay way above the stage,” she said, “looking down. It made me feel like I was watching dolls. Not puppets – dolls.”

We see a popsicle, it is white, you would expect it to be lemon, but then we are told it tastes like fish, and so it does.

This was my new curriculum, my course list was experiencing forms of theater that had not been covered in school. I was no longer satisfied with “going to the theater.” Now I had to learn something I hadn’t known before, Perhaps this is what it means to begin your late 20s.

A warning, included in our programs.
It could have been written today (but for the 900 number).

Source: Artforum

Assessment

Photo: Gabrielle DiDonato

Calendar year 2024 I made sixty-five submissions. There were nineteen live performances of my work in a variety of venues.

Fifteen years ago, I received a fellowship and branded myself a playwright. I had written plays, but I had not yet told myself, given myself permission, to announce to the world that this is what, this is who I am.

Like changing my name at age eighteen, not everyone I knew immediately accepted this change. They would recommend to me plays to perform in, because they knew me as an actor, or plays to direct, because they knew me as a director. They were not interested in my plays.

Even so, I was committed to becoming a successful, professional playwright. All I had to do was to get produced. That is what I believed, I just needed to get produced. What I really needed to do was to write plays.

I made a list, way back then, of plays I wanted to write. Stories I wanted to tell. Scripts that I wanted to bring into existence, where they had not existed before. It was not a short list. I wish I still had that list, but I believe it included subjects like George Michael, Three Globes, Eliot Ness, Grandfather’s Letters. I have written all of these plays.

I had a list of hopes, dreams of plays I might some day write, and I have written those. Since 2010, I have created a catalog of work, no fewer than twenty full-length scripts (and so many more shorter plays) several of which have been produced, even published.

It’s not a career, I cannot survive on the income I receive from the work. But there are those things that are under your control, and there are those things that are not. I have younger colleagues who are unimpressed when I lament about what I describe as my few successes. Because they have always known me as a playwright, that is how they see me and how they think of me.

For that fact alone, I should count myself a success, because that is something I set out to do, to redefine myself and how I am seen in the world, and I have accomplished that.

Pengo's 2024 Summer Book Club

Griffin, Mark, Carrie & Howard

Over the summer I did more reading than I had in a long time, or even since, which is a pity because there is much more time in which to do it in.

A two week vacation afforded me the opportunity to read two books with a third bringing me home; no small coincidence they all had to do with the performing arts.

The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by James Shapiro is a rather company history of the Federal Theatre Project, and how that three year government works project led, in its way, to the establishment of the House Committee on Un-American Activities which stretched from that time in the mid-1930s into the 1970s.

He’s not just documenting history, however, his main agenda is to illustrate how the lust for power and influence, rather than any particular belief or sense of duty, drives certain individuals to frighten the public with manufactured bogeymen, and to destroy those who are earnestly working in the best interests of the society as a whole in pursuit of their own hollow desires. This is as true today as it was in 1938.

While I was in Maine, I was not participating in the BorderLight Theatre Festival in Cleveland.* This is a pity, as in 2023 I was able to indulge in the festival and was thrilled by all the local artists working in and around downtown Cleveland that weekend.

This year, one of BorderLight’s international artists was Paterson Joseph, a British actor of TV and film and a veteran of the RSC. I remembered him from the absurd BBC hospital drama parody Green Wing, and, as it happens, I had also seen him play Oswald in King Lear at Stratford-Upon-Avon in 1990, when we were both much younger men.

In Cleveland this summer, he performed his monodrama Sancho & Me: One Night Only, based on the life of Charles Ignatius Sancho, a British composer (among numerous other talents and vocations) who was able, in spite of having been born on a slave ship, to rise and prosper in society. He was even the second person of African descent to vote in England.

While I was unable to see this performance, I did take advantage of an online lecture, The Art and Craft of Historical Fiction Writing, for which Joseph, speaking to us live from London (it was midnight where he was, bless him) described the process of taking a figure like Sancho, who left a scant historical record of his personal life, and building it into a fully formed character.

He referred to his own novel, The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho, and when the time arrived for questions I asked about his process, adapting his novel into his script. He explained that it was, in fact, the other way around – he has performed this play for some time, and during the Covid-19 quarantine he took the opportunity to expand the work into a novel, his first.

By the time the seminar had concluded, I had already texted my wife to order a copy of the book from Loganberry Books, and they already had it in stock – because of course they did!

I was mostly through Playbook when we arrived in Friendship, but dropped it for Secret Diaries because I was in a fictional mood. It is fiction, in that there is so little known about Sancho, but it sings with truth, truth observed in it by the deep historical research conducted by the author.

Finally, I picked up a birthday gift, The Friday Afternoon Club, a memoir by Griffin Dunne. I have long appreciated the dry hipster wit of Dunne, as represented in his performances in films like An American Werewolf in London and After Hours, and have sympathized in him the life of one who strived but always feels out of place wherever he is.

The book is neatly divided in half; the first a collection of tales about privileged slackers, the second in which we take a harrowing turn into the death of his sister, and the ensuing trial of her murderer.

Then I finished The Playbook. Non-fiction, historical fiction, memoir. And since last summer, I’ve been working on my own historical fiction, which is its own kind of memoir of striving, and my own search for acceptance and meaning. 

The book by Joseph and the one by Dunne were inspirational, each in their insistence on honesty and emotional accuracy. The Shapiro book reminds me I have unfinished writing business, on a work which remains relevant and in the new year may become even more so.

*This is not entirely accurate. Talespinner Children’s Theatre remounted my stage adaptation of "The Toothpaste Millionaire" on July 27.

Smoking Bishop (recipe)

Illustration by John Leech

“A merry Christmas, Bob!” said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. “A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you, for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!”

from “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, 1843

Smoking Bishop is a mulled wine, and ever since I bothered to learn that that is what it is, I have offered to make it for holiday gatherings, especially for those related to my work at Great Lakes Theater. This year I will be making it twice, for the staff party, and again for the actor-teachers in the new year.

• Take five oranges and one grapefruit and roast until  browned.
• Jab each of the fruits with cloves, six to eight each, place in a bowl and add two bottles of red wine, along with a quarter pound of sugar.
• Cover and let sit for about a day, in a warm place (I choose the oven).
• Juice the citrus into the wine and strain into a crockpot. Add the port and heat until it is “smoking” and serve.

You can also add spices including small amounts of cinnamon, mace, allspice, ginger, and/or nutmeg, to taste, though I have found satisfaction without them.

Ten Good Moments in 2024

Way back in 2016, to close out a difficult year, I reflected upon ten good moments, to accentuate the positive. This year I feel no less defeated by current events, the year has provided me with great happiness, and I would again like to share a few of those (in chronological order). 

1. Jon Batiste plays the Cleveland Museum of Art. The most Cleveland thing ever, Batiste was leading his band through the house, playing “When the Saints Go Marching In” on his melodica. The crowd was on our feet, and when he got to our row, Batiste reached past me to shake hands with Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, who had been seated next to my wife. It must be mentioned, earlier that evening the Mayor had complimented my wife’s boots.

2. Transitive Property. Our children are artists. Who knew? College visits are often scheduled to coincide with a recital, gig, gallery opening or performance event. Our elder child had several this year, including an interdisciplinary semi-improvised dance and music performance, as well as shows in Nelsonville, at Loganberry Books, as well as on campus at Ohio University.

3. The Total Eclipse of the Sun. When my wife got me (us) opening day tickets to see the Guardians last Christmas, I thought — oh, no. Opening Day is usually cold and rainy, often it snows. Well, not only was the weather perfect on April 8, 2024, but the game was bumped a few hours to experience a total eclipse.

4. Queen Mary 2. For the moment, we luxuriate. Last year we took a train to the Southwest, a journey we had ruminated upon for some time. It’s like a pre-retirement age (as though we will ever retire) doing those things we would spend time talking about late into the evening but never had the time to do, until now. And so we took a transatlantic cruise. Friends made references to the Titanic, but I reminded them that that was White Star cruiser, and that the QM2 is a Cunard ship. They rescued the survivors of Titanic.

Seven days and nights, lying in, having coffee in our bathrobes and reading while sitting out on our private balcony overlooking the vast, unbroken sea. In short order we discovered those corners we did (and did not) wish to while away the hours: the library, the Chart Room cocktail bar, The Golden Lion Pub, high tea at three and even karaoke. Yes, I will karaoke when I am leagues from anyone I know.

It was a lovely time to be together alone.

5. Twenty-Fifth Anniversary. Shortly after returning from England, we held an open house to celebrate our anniversary with our nearest and dearest. And we have met a wide variety of wonderful people over the years. Remarkable, too, are those who were not present, those who have died or with whom we have parted or those who have simply vanished from our lives. Twenty-five years is a long time, our wedding was one of the last things we did in the 1900s. Folks my age can get a little freaked out when the kids refer to the 1990s as “the late 1900s” but when you think about it, that really was a different century.

6. Cleveland Guardians. Before the name change, we might have taken in a game each summer, but since they became the Guardians, we’ve gone a little nuts about this team. Yes, we were there on opening day, and maybe a dozen more times besides. Though we couldn’t best the Yankees, the Guards went down proudly … which is more than we can say for, you know, the Yankees. We will miss you, Gimé! Godspeed!

7. Kamala Harris. Put simply, the problem is not that not enough people voted for her. The problem is that far too many people voted for him. That is a sickness which must be remedied, and it will go hard. But Vice President Harris ran a flawless, three month campaign that was full of hope and promise and joy. And the people chose Trump. That’s on the people.

8. Drennon Davis is a comedian and voice actor who became an internet phenom during the Quarantine when he began producing clips of his housebound interactions with his talking cats. We love this guy, and went to see him at the Cat Fancier Association International Cat Show and Exposition at the I-X Center. Don’t know if you’ve ever been, it’s equal parts cat judging competitions, cat swag goes market and cat-themed entertainers, all fairing at the same time. Davis did a presentation that included a “live” video chat with Newt, Toad, Frog and Doug, and we got to say hello and have a lovely picture taken. Business!

9. Cincinnati. The boy is enrolled at the conservatory of music at the University of Cincinnati. He is majoring in jazz, he plays the drums. I so wish my father could see this. A few times a year we attend his end-of-semester gigs at Caffè Vivace. Cincinnati was entirely alien to me before this turn of events. In school we made a couple trips, to see concerts, even to a cattle call for a film. In the past two years we have become familiar with a few neighborhoods and my wife even found a second home at the Gaslight Bed and Breakfast. Hi, Maria!

10. A Christmas Carol. Charles Dickens’ tale describing the reclamation of Ebenezer Scrooge is so universal and elegantly told that it continues to stand up to generations of satire and derision. Dealing as it does with an elderly man reflecting upon his life choices, I cannot help but personally feel it becomes more terrorist as one gets older. One youthful heartbreak led to a lifetime of emotional insecurity and cynicism? Why yes, that actually happens, but we can choose to do better.

As should be obvious, I love the season, and having the opportunity to be immersed in the trappings and tropes of the most iconic of holiday stories, eight times a week (nine as we close the run) have only intensified these feelings.

This winter will be hard, the new year is uncertain. We'll have to muddle through somehow.

Ten Amazing Productions in 2024

Ride the Cyclone

One of the issues with being in a holiday production is that you can’t see anyone else’s holiday production. Especially when your show has eight performances a week. However, I did get out to see as much as I could throughout the year. Here are a few of those, presented in chronological order.

Ride the Cyclone (Beck Center for the Arts) I knew this musical by reputation, or rumor, as it has a great following among young theater people. The subject matter is quite upsetting: five high school kids are killed riding a roller coaster and remain in limbo while they debate who has lived the least, and that person gets to survive. But what the show really is is a chance to defend who you are, and to have acceptance for who that is.

Clue: High School Edition (St. Paul Central High School) Visiting my brother and his family in the Twin Cities, we went to the Guthrie to see Bill Irwin’s solo performance On Beckett (which we had previously experienced online during the quarantine) and I also got to see my niece in this high school play, based on the 1985 film. Like a lot of people of a certain age who didn’t watch this movie incessantly on cable, I don’t “get” Clue. But a tightly choreographed high school production just pops, packed with a variety of great roles for teens to play.

Funny, Like an Abortion

Funny, Like an Abortion (Cleveland Public Theater) There is a bill set to be introduced in the South Carolina statehouse to make abortion a capital crime. Rachel Bublitz’s hilarious and harrowing two-hander that unfortunately continues to be relevant. The CPT production was audaciously animated, concluding with a direct appeal to vote, and I will assume everyone in the audience did vote, though we can’t be certain for whom.

The Toothpaste Millionaire (Talespinner Children’s Theatre) Theater is a collaborative art and there is little more satisfying for a playwright than watching a play you have written coming together the way you hoped it would. This production was playful, colorful, energetic, animated, intelligent and fun. We’ll destroy Capitalism some other day, for now it is a treat to see a lively story about pre-teen kids taking down Big Dentafrice.

The Golden Girls

Standing at the Sky’s Edge (Gillian Lynne Theatre) We saw a few shows on our recent visit to England (more on that here) but this one made a deep impact. I’ve fallen in love with the recording and the music of Richard Hawley, and the braided storyline was a major inspiration on a piece I am currently writing.

Last Ship to Proxima Centauri (convergence-continuum) We need more science fiction plays. The Liminis was just the perfect space to mount Greg Lam’s claustrophobic play set in the deck of a ship arriving late to the landing party, you could fairly smell it.

 
The Golden Girls: The Laughs Continue (Hanna Theater) Between this and Oh, Mary! (more on that show here) I have decided I need more drag in my life. I was fortunate to catch a slice with my friend Adam Graber while he was in town playing Rose in this drag tribute to a very popular television program I have never watched. He was able to not only give me the deets on the source material, but also the history of this touring production which has become a big part of his life for the past two years.

Acts of Clay

Acts of Clay (Wizbang Theatre) You been to Wizbang yet? In addition to their own circus performance work and other non-traditional theatrical offerings, just before spooky season, they were host to this collection of brief horror plays by Stuart Hoffman in the manner of the Grand Guignol: tales of treachery, the supernatural, the grotesque and also humiliation and cuckoldry.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Great Lakes Theater) We’ve been taking our kids to see theater since before they could write. One of the first show we took our eldest to was Into the Woods at GLT, and I was very excited about taking them to see this fall’s production now that they are an adult – but they were even more jazzed to see the show that was being performed in rep with that one, because Midsummer was the very first play they ever saw. During the performance I sat next to their girlfriend who had never seen this Shakespearean play and it is truly wonderful to get to share a story like this with someone new.

Two Shakes

Two Shakes (Goldhorn Brewery) I had the great pleasure to read a new script by Luke Brett with the playwright himself before an excited and lovely crowd; Two Shakes is not mere bardolatry, but an insightful investigation of who we are when we are young, what we become when we are old, and even the value in vanity.

There are already several shows I plan to see in the new year, and as I have intimated, there is a new piece I have been creating this year. I have had three private readings for it since last spring, each time giving it a new edit, and now I am struggling to decide if I should self-produce ("stop me before I self-produce again") so if you or someone you know want to be a lead producer on a new work, hey. You know where I am.

Seriously, as far as my own work in theater is concerned, the new year is a mystery to me. And for the first time, perhaps for ever, that is entirely okay.

A Christmas Carol (2024)

James Alexander Rankin as Bob Cratchit
"A Christmas Carol"
(Great Lakes Theater, 2024)
Costume design by James Scott
Scenic Design by John Ezell
& Gene Emerson Friedman
Photo by Roger Mastroianni

Great Lakes Theater first produced A Christmas Carol in 1989. Then-Artistic Director Gerald Freedman wrote an adaptation that cleaves neatly to the original work. As a framing device, the Cleaveland family (the name is never spoken, you can find it in your program) gather together on Christmas Eve to read Charles Dickens’ classic work, a simple and elegant entry to the story.

Recently, I discovered my ticket for the first time I saw the show, surprised to see it was from that first year. Dated December 22, 1989, it may even have been closing night. I was twenty-one, home for the holidays during my fourth year at college. At the time I was most impressed by the Ghost of Christmas Present, performed by Kevin McCarty. Kevin was completing his MFA in Acting at Ohio University just as I was an incoming freshman. A big man with a stern brown and a deep and resonant voice, his ghost was full of life and joy but also quite intimidating.

Since that time, the Great Lakes production has grown into a true institution. I cannot imagine anyone intending this or any regional theater production to continue for five years, let alone thirty-six and counting, and I truly believe the city would be poorer with its absence. Part of that is due to Mr. Dickens, but also Mr. Freedman and the entire original creative team.

Because of the sincerity of the framing device – which includes the youngest of the Cleavelands wordlessly witnessing the evens of the story, casting members of his household as the characters – this adaptation has avoided becoming dated. It is commonplace for us to ironically wink at the audience because, you know, it’s A Christmas Carol, after all. But it’s played straight, and so it stands, not stuck in the 1980s or 90s, but entirely Victorian in style and language.

Kevin McCarty as the Ghost of Christmas Present
(Great Lakes Theater, 1996)
Photo by Roger Mastroianni

Credit is due to this adaptation embracing Dickens’ message of social justice and economic disparity, including details from the novel which are often glossed over. I am especially touched by the scene when Christmas Present takes Scrooge around the globe, and even beneath the earth, to see miners, a lighthouse keeper, and a ships’ captain out to sea. The breadth of humanity and the wideness of the world is sublimely depicted here through traditional stage tricks of light and darkness and fog. The hand-tooled appearance of the set and effects contributes greatly to the sweetness and enduring popularity of this production.

From 1982 to 2008, Great Lakes produced exclusively in the Ohio (now Mimi Ohio) Theatre. Relocating the majority of their work to the Hanna Theatre sixteen seasons ago, A Christmas Carol remains in the Mimi Ohio, the theater for which it was designed. Retrofitting the show to the intimate Hanna would for all intents and purposes mean redesigning the entire production, which would make it something entirely different, and not necessarily for the better. In the stately Ohio the show is like a handsome and antique holiday picture postcard.

I started bringing my own, living children to see A Christmas Carol when each turned four years old. But this is a ghost story, and there are some remarkable frights along the way. Marley’s entrance is startling (it includes a dramatic reminder of from where he is arriving) which often produces squeaks and squeals from youthful audience members. I stayed particularly attentive to our eldest their first year (2007) as the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come made its silent, awe-inspiring appearance. After a few intense moments, our little one leaned to me and whispered, “... is that a puppet?” They were spooked, but even at that age they knew a thing or two about stagecraft.

During the 2015-2016 season, Playhouse Square renovated the lobby of the Ohio, restoring it to its original 1920s grandeur. That holiday season, however, due to the construction, it was necessary to take a long, narrow, featureless tunnel into the theater. But what I best remember was that that was the year my entire side of the family – my parents, my brothers and their spouses, my wife and children and our nieces – we all saw the show together on the same night. Father said he’d never seen it before, which surprised me. The memory of this evening is all the more poignant for me as our father died early the next year.

Nick Steen in costume as Ebenezer Scrooge
handing out awards for the
"A Christmas Carol" Writing Contest
(November 26, 2024)

As should be made evident, in addition to my responsibilities assisting with student matinees and facilitating the A Christmas Carol Writing Contest, I have also seen the show many times, watching with a kind of fascination as the tone changes with each director (technically, it has always been “directed by Gerald Freedman” as each subsequent director works to maintain his original staging) and the several – though surprisingly few – men who have assumed the mantle of Ebenezer Scrooge.

A week before Thanksgiving this year, and just as the show was about to open, I was asked to join the acting company, a necessary last-minute replacement. An understudy would take the first weekend, and I would join in thereafter and for the rest of the run. And so my entire holiday schedule this year has been turned upside-down, a crash course in A Christmas Carol and an altogether delightful experience, though at first a bit like jumping onto a moving train.

It was not surprising to me that several members of the company assumed I had performed in this show before. I have worked for Great Lakes Theater for some time. But I have not done this show, and I am very glad to participate in this way, grateful for the opportunity.

At a talkback last week, a student asked the company which moment in the show is our favorite, and I said the street scenes. There are three times when nearly the entire company crosses the stage – that’s a lot of people and not a terribly large space. The choreography is tight and I did mess up once or twice the first couple of times, crushed against a window or bumping into furniture. But by the end of Thanksgiving weekend I felt like an old hand, and am now truly able to breathe and enjoy those moments.

Myself, in costume emceeing the
"A Christmas Carol" Writing Contest
(December 3, 2024)

I’ve made new friends in the company, and am having the chance to work with others I’ve known for years but have never shared a stage with. Some members of the “young company” are the children of old friends, or even students I have taught in schools through the residency program. It’s a youthful, vibrant company – even for those of us who aren’t so young anymore.

And that may be why I love this season, and this production, and the lesson it brings. It is about our shared humanity, negotiating this one world together. No one is more respectful nor deferential than a player in a narrow backstage space, making way for a fellow company or crew member who needs a clear path to rush from point to point, holding a large prop or a basket of costumes, or sporting a voluminous, hallway-spanning skirt.

For closing thoughts, I give you nephew Fred:

“But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time … as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

“And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”

- “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, 1843

Great Lakes Theater's 36th annual production of "A Christmas Carol" continues through December 22, 2024

Disclaimer: I am employed by Great Lakes Theater. The thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own.