A CHRISTMAS CAROL

The movie tonight is Dickens Christmas Carol on Turner Classic Movies.

Some years ago I had the great pleasure to be an artist in residence for eight weeks at an artists residency program on West Port Island, Called the McNamara Foundation. During that stay, I wrote two plays. One of them was a new version of the Christmas Carol. I had it take place in the present, partly to avoid the hassle of costumes, but the most significant difference between my play and others was that I combined live action and film. I filmed all the scenes during which the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future took Scrooge to visit or revisit. There were about thirteen or so of these scenes, I cast, directed and filmed these scenes, and hired another person to direct the live action. Filming these scenes and projecting them on a scrim at the appropriate times turned out to be very successful, and has encouraged me to combine film and live action again in other plays.

I recruited friends to play all those roles, and included them all in the program notes. Most of them came to see the production. My neighbors, Tom, Cindi, Elena and Phil Bertocci were in one scene...the one where the Spirit of the Past took Ebeneezer to see the woman he ought to have married. She and her family were having their Christmas dinner in their elegant dining room. There was a fire in the fireplace. I had baked a turkey for the shot as well. The scene toward the end where the Spirit of the future took Scrooge to see his grave was shot late one winter afternoon in the Thomaston Cemetary. Light snow was falling. And so on with all the other scenes.
I produced the play at the Lincoln Street Center for the Arts where I had been Director.

The other play I wrote at West Port Island those eight weeks was a play about Louise Nevelson, the great American sculptor. She grew up in Rockland, and had gone to high school in the very building that was now the Lincoln Street Center for the Arts. I wanted to bring her back to Rockland and her high school in triumph. However, I was let go. I guess the board discovered they could get along without me during my eight weeks leave to attend the artists residency program. The Nevelson play,which I titled "Self Portraits" has never been produced.