Bill Raymond is saying goodbye to “Bah! Humbug!”
The venerable character actor, who has played Ebenezer Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas” at Hartford Stage for 16 of the past 18 seasons, has announced that he is hanging up his stocking cap and leaving the show after this year.
Raymond’s final romp through “A Christmas Carol” happens Nov. 25 through Dec. 31.
In a phone interview from his New York apartment, Raymond calls the decision “a sort of retirement, I guess. This year will be my last time. I have familial things to take care of.
“I’m definitely not doing ‘Christmas Carol’ again in the foreseeable future. Maybe when I’m 100 years old — that would be interesting.”
The “Christmas Carol” tradition began at Hartford Stage in 1998, the first season under artistic director Michael Wilson. Wilson had originally adapted and directed Charles Dickens classic short story for the Alley Theatre in Houston in 1990 (where it still plays every year). When Wilson left Hartford Stage in 2011, “A Christmas Carol” was maintained by associate artistic director Maxwell Williams. Williams left Hartford in 2014 to run Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré in New Orleans. This year, the job of overseeing “A Christmas Carol” has been given to Hartford Stage Artistic associate Rachel Alderman.
Bill Raymond says he had no idea when he was offered the role that he’d be still doing it nearly two decades later. When he missed a couple of seasons, he says, it was only because he had other obligations — Patti Lupone’s Broadway revival of “Gypsy” in 2008, and the David Lindsay-Abaire play “Wonder of the World” (starring Sarah Jessica Parker) in 2001. He almost missed another season while appearing in the Steven Spielberg film “Lincoln,” but “they were able to fly me back and forth.” (He means in an airplane, and is not referring to the fantastic flying ghosts who flit about the show.)
Raymond has been performing on and off in Connecticut for more than 40 years. His early visits were as a member of the famed Mabou Mines experimental theater troupe in the late 1970s. Before becoming Scrooge, Raymond was at Hartford Stage in 2006 in Eugene O’Neill’s “Moon for the Misbegotten.” That show was a co-production with the Long Wharf Theatre, where Raymond also played Bottom in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in 2005. He first appeared at the Yale Repertory Theatre in 1977, in Mabou Mines’ “The B. Beaver Animation,” returning 17 years later to do Janusz Glowacki’s “Antigone in New York.”
Bill Raymond’s been in dozens of movies, including several for writer/director John Sayles. TV viewers know him as legendary crime lord The Greek on “The Wire,” mad doctor Richard X. Todhunter on Stephen King’s “Golden Years” in 1991 and Albert Wiggins in the final season of “Damages.” Currently, Raymond can be seen as Dr. Carroll in “The Cobblestone Corridor,” a locally produced mystery series aired on CPTV. “The Cobblestone Corridor” was created by Erik Bloomquist, who as a child acted with Raymond in “A Christmas Carol.”
Raymond’s performed with children in the “Christmas Carol” audience as well. He recalls one performance where a small boy wouldn’t stop screaming “Mr. Scrooge! Mr. Scrooge! Mr. Scrooge!”
“I turned to him,” Raymond says, “and said, ‘How are you doing?’ He said. ‘Fine.’ So I picked him up, put him on my shoulders and carried him around for the rest of the show.”
When asked if he channeled anyone in particular when creating his Scrooge, Raymond responds “I don’t know if I’ve ever channeled anything. I’ve been on canals from time to time.” He expresses great admiration for the 1951 film version of “A Christmas Carol,” which starred Alastair Sim.
Raymond’s performed his Scrooge opposite dozens of different actors over the years. Only two other performers, Robert Hannon Davis (who plays Bob Cratchit) and Alan Rust (The Spirit of Christmas Present) can equal or better Raymond’s time with the show.
“I think that show can change every night. Something I do every night now that was not always there is when I’m asked if I’ve lost my senses and I say, ‘No, my dear, I’ve come to my senses,’ and then I go ‘Heeheeheeheehee’,” in an expression of madness.
Does Bill Raymond, the Scrooge of so many “Christmas Carols” past, have any advice for Scrooges of seasons yet to come? “Get a grip!” he snarls. “Don’t be so cheap!”
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