Art with Heart


Allen Fitzpatrick in
"A Christmas Carol"
For the third year in a row, renowned stage actor Allen Fitzpatrick presents his solo adaptation of Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol."
Allen follows in the footsteps its author who, a few years after writing the novella, began public readings of it which he continued to perform until the year of his death.
This story has been represented in over a hundred adaptations for stage, film, opera, and radio. In Allen’s version, audiences have the opportunity to use the full range of their imagination as one actor— on a virtually bare stage— creates 26
different characters. Audiences have been delighted by the personal, individual impact which this approach affords.
Dickens novella captures the zeitgeist of the mid-Victorian revival of the Christmas holiday, popularizing many aspects of Christmas celebration— including family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games, and a festive generosity of spirit. And it shows the path by which selfish, acquisitive men may redeem themselves. Its most important theme, however— all too relevant today— is to shine a glaring light on mistreatment of the poor. Dickens wrote his novella in response to British social attitudes towards poverty. He was compelled to show the repercussions of ignoring the poor— especially children— in poverty.
Allen Fitzpatrick has acted at every major Seattle theatre; he was featured in 28 productions at the 5 th Avenue
Theatre. He has spent 48 years on Broadway and in professional theatre, working alongside such notables as Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Harold Prince, John Guare, and Marvin Hamlisch. He debuted on Broadway in Les Miserables; among his other eight Broadway credits are Driving Miss Daisy (with James Earl Jones), The Scarlet Pimpernel, Damn Yankees (with Jerry Lewis), and 42ndStreet. He was the stand-by for John Lithgow in Sweet Smell of Success, directed by Sir Nicholas Hytner.