Last fall, a few months after I started working at Goodman Theatre, a scandal rocked the normally peaceful 4th floor offices: Larry Yando showed up with a mustache.
This was Larry’s 14th season starring as Ebenezer Scrooge in our annual production of A Christmas Caroland he was booked for his usual publicity photos. Evidently, Larry was appearing at another theater in a role that required the unexpected facial hair.
“Does Scrooge have a mustache?” we asked in a half dozen emails and in a particularly tense marketing meeting. After an unsuccessful attempt to remove his mustache via photoshop, we concluded that we were going ahead with the publicity photos, mustache and all.
No public outcry ensued, and happy guests at A Christmas Carol continued to line up for family photos with a life size mustachioed Larry-as-Scrooge cardboard cutout in the Goodman lobby.
Once the show closed, the cardboard Scrooge disappeared for a while, until early one morning when it scared the pants out of me as he peaked out from a recently vacated office.
And so it went: I’d forget about Scrooge and then, there he’d be glowering at me from a cubical.
Yesterday he was showed up again wearing an origami garland of mysterious origin.
But back to the original question: does Scrooge have a mustache? In answering this critical question, I should note that despite being both a massive Dickens fan and total theater nerd, I had never actually seen Goodman Theatre’s production of A Christmas Carol, let alone our star performer, Larry Yando, before last winter. I guess I thought the play wasn’t for me, and maybe I was just a tiny bit skeptical about the Larry Yando hype. But, after watching the play, I joined the legions of converts. Friends: I’m here to tell you that Larry Yando is Scrooge. When Larry scowls, he’s Scrooge, when he grins with greedy glee he’s Scrooge, when he waggles his hips, he’s Scrooge, and when his cold heart finally unthaws with generosity, the joy of his holiday-spirit Scroogeiness flows out into the audience with magic that only the realest of real Scrooges would be capable of. So YES, if Larry Yando has a mustache, then Scrooge can have a mustache because Larry Yando is Scrooge.
It’s that time of year again. Larry is scheduled for his publicity photos for his 15th year as Scrooge and quite possibly a new life size cut out is on its way. Does Larry-as-Scrooge have a mustache this year? Sorry, no spoilers–you’re going to have to find that one out for yourself. Go ahead, get tickets, bring the whole family (I’ll be there with mine) and a box of tissues because I’m pretty sure we’ll all be crying together at the curtain call.
God bless us every one, with or without a mustache.
Matti Allison is the Director of Audience Development at Goodman Theatre.
