What a wonderful way to spend an evening!  Tonight I had the pleasure to join local celebrities such as Charity Nebbe of NPR, Ralph Williams - the beloved U of M scholar, actor/director/playwright Malcolm Tulip and more onstage at Performance Network in our concert reading of "A Christmas Carol."  It was an end of the year fundraiser for PNT.  With just three hours of rehearsal we got together to read Dickens' holiday tale of a miserly old sinner who gets a chance at redemption.  John Seibert and Terry Heck were their usual brilliant selves as Scrooge and the Narrator respectively.  I joined my husband Phil Powers as Mrs. to his Bob Cratchit and found myself more than a little choked up as a new mother reading the scene where Tiny Tim has passed away.  Performance Network favorites like John Bennett, Aaron Moore, and Sarab Kamoo got into the act and PNT staff members and apprenti played their parts as well.  Local Playwright Joseph Zettelmaier fulfilled two lifelong dreams: playing Fred and acting with the ever-radiant Sarab Kamoo.  

We had three little ones with us as well: Latifah, Sabra and Aviva played multiple Cratchits as well as Tiny Tim.  Their natural talent was apparent for all to see, and these children will surely have careers ahead of them.  Casting strokes of genius had community leaders and philanthropists Norm Herbert and Jerry Lax reading "Charity gentlemen" (which elicited peals of laughter at Dickens description of them as "portly gents.")  Tom Whalen provided live sound effects from on stage right; chiming church bells, clip-clopping of horses' hooves, the jingling of sleigh bells, etc.  Ralph Williams chilled the audience to the bones with his reading of the narration of "Stave Four: the Ghost of Christmas yet to come."  Luckily, a batch of hot-buttered rum punch was waiting in the lobby to warm us all back up again.

We are so very grateful to all who came together to donate of their time, talents and good will to make this evening possible.  What a wonderful community we live in, filled with wonderful people, not a Scrooge among them - all of whom know the true meaning of Christmas.  God bless us, every one.