UpDate - Vol. 16, No. 11
November 14, 1996
'A Christmas Carol': Local actor featured in one-man production

     William Leach has acted on stages across the country, but
this year, he decided to stop traveling for a while and develop
projects in Newark-his current hometown. As a result, local
audiences have been able to see this world-class performer in two
recent productions of the University's Professional Theatre
Training Program and will be able to see him again this holiday
season in his one-man adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas
Carol.
     "The performance is all about the fine art of storytelling,"
Leach said. "You see me on stage telling the story as I become
different people to illustrate certain points more vividly.
     "I guess most people are familiar with the story but have
never heard it this way before. There is so much in Dickens'
original text that people never get to hear," Leach said.
     "Over the years, everyone from Mr. Magoo to Bill Murray has
adapted and changed the story, and it's easy to focus on the
comic angle and evade the real issues Dickens based it on. When
it's comic, it becomes something we can detach ourselves from.
It's just the story of a crotchety old man in a nightcap. There
is much more at the heart of it."
     Much more, too, he says, than the special effects
incorporated into many productions of A Christmas Carol.
     "In a one-man show, I'm not beholden to special effects and
folderol. I can tell the story with the attitude of Dickens in
his introduction, when he writes he hopes he will not put his
readers 'out of humor with each other, with the season or with
me.'
     "Basically," Leach said, "A Christmas Carol is a story of
redemption.  If we admit it, there is actually a little bit of
Scrooge in all of us. The word 'scrooge' means to push away. When
you 'scrooge' someone you are telling them to go away and leave
you alone."
     A Christmas Carol, Leach said, is a family story that is not
exclusive to any one person or group. He calls its universal
appeal "a test of its endurance."
     Leach first became interested in playing Scrooge when he
appeared as Jacob Marley in a production of A Chrismas Carol in
Milwaukee, where he and his wife, Susan Sweeney, now an associate
professor of theatre at UD, lived. At that time, Sweeney taught
in the Professional Theatre Training Program at the University of
Wisconsin, and Leach taught undergraduate theatre courses. Both
moved to Newark when PTTP did eight years ago.
     Local audiences had a chance to see Leach and Sweeney
perform together last March in the PTTP production of The Faith
Healer and again this fall in Love Letters.
     A professional actor for 40 years, Leach says some of his
favorite roles, "ones I have pondered and reflected on" include
Cyrano de Bergerac, George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf,
Shylock in The Merchant of Venice and Willie Loman in Death of a
Salesman.
     While living in Milwaukee, Leach performed with the
Milwaukee Repertory Theatre for five years and was instrumental
in the founding of the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre. Previously, he
lived in Florida and performed with the regional Asolo State
Theatre.
     A Christmas Carol opens on Wednesday, Dec. 4, at 7:30 p.m.
Other 7:30 p.m. performances are scheduled Dec. 5-7, Dec. 12-14
and Dec. 19-21. Matinee performances, at 12:30 p.m., are
scheduled on Dec. 7, 8, 14, 15 and 21. All performances will be
held in Hartshorn Hall. Tickets are $15 for the general public,
$10 for UD faculty, staff, alumni, students and senior citizens
and $5 for children under the age of 17. For more information,
call 831-  2204.
                                                     -Beth Thomas