A Christmas Story (as if you haven't heard enough of them)

When I was living in Missouri between the years 1988-1997, there was a professional theatre in the town of Canton called THE GOLDEN EAGLE. It was a building, shaped like an old riverboat. Through the years, there would be many people who claimed to remember it when it plied the waters of the Mississippi, but it never did....largely because the cement hull would have taken it to the bottom in a Titanic minute. But it was a grand place; the auditorium space could hold about 150 people comfortably, and the balcony section could hold about fifty more. A huge stained glass ceiling above. A kitchen in the back of the auditorium, where the buffet dinner was served. There was also a kitchen on the second deck, and an apartment that I lived in on more than one occasion. The view of the river from the top of the boat was not breathtaking, but it was serviceable.

The "boat", as it was called by the veterans, was mainly a summer theatre gig, doing old style melodramas and comedy-musicals, in true summer stock: six shows in three and a half months, with the cast doing everything including setting the tables for dinner. Many actors passed through; some went on to careers, others went to find other things to do, but everybody was effected by their work at the "boat."

But for a few of us local actors, the fun show was the Christmas Show, and every year, from the end of Thanksgiving to just before Christmas, we would trod the boards of the old stage, a holiday tradition in a small river town.

The shows weren't much, really....a series of songs and sketches with a holiday theme for the first act, and then some kind of one act thematic melodrama/comedy, written by the owner of the boat, a most amazing man named David Steinbeck. He would write it, he would play the piano during it, and he would play host to the friendly faces that walked through the door.

Things I can remember from those Halcyon days:

1. Todd Leftwich's annual Tree Trimming party; Todd would always get this ENORMOUS tree, and then invite everybody over to decorate, trade presents, eat and drink and be merry. It wasn't a holiday without it.

2. The night I played a Christmas Tree; It was the second act of the show, and it was something about an unscrupulous tree salesman who winds up AS a Christmas tree. So, there I am, standing in the middle of the stage, dressed in a green cape with a green pointy hat, wrapped in lights, covered in tinsel, and with ornaments hung all over me.
Are you seeing where this is going?
No?
Well, one night, one or two of the ornaments fell off during the show. There was a pause, and then one of the actors ad-libbed:
"Oh, how sad. The Christmas tree had dropped it's balls."
Pandemonium on AND off the stage. The longest sustained laugh in Golden Eagle History.

3. The night that power went out, and we sang Christmas Carols acappella. With improvised harmony. Could have been a train wreck, but it wasn't.

4. It was the first time I ever played Ebenezer Scrooge. I've played it many, many times since then (at last count, I've done just a little over 300 performances of Christmas Carol), but the thing about that particular production was Tiny Tim, who had an interesting way of saying his "signature" line, "God Bless Us, Everyone", like he was asking everyone to God Bless Us. Like we sneezed or something.

5. I can't hear a single Christmas carol anymore without knowing that I've actually performed it at one time or another:

Christmas is coming,
The goose is getting fat!
Please put a penny in the old man's hat.
If you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do;
If you haven't got a ha'penny, God Bless You.

You don't hear that one very much, anymore.

6. Mostly, what I remember most is walking home after a show, a light snow falling, that silence that often accompanies a snowfall, and the simple beauty of the local Christmas lights, wrapping houses in warm embrace.

The Golden Eagle is gone now.....a victim of riverboat gambling and a general apathy toward live theatre. But the memories remain, like the words of Clement Moore's poem, or Frank Church's response to little Virginia in the New York Sun in 1897.

If you haven't got a ha'penny,
God Bless You.