3 minute read
Connections, Winter 2023
From the Archives
Four Delightful Decades of Scrooge Chapel
“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all three shall strive within me.”
– Ebenezer Scrooge, A Christmas Carol
For today’s students, Scrooge Chapel is more than a cherished holiday custom—it’s a time to gather with friends before Winter Vacation and watch faculty and staff deliver over-the-top performances while dressed up as the year’s funniest cultural icons.
Yes, EA’s annual retelling of A Christmas Carol is anything but traditional. From the Jersey Shore’s Snooki (Sunshine O’Donnell) spraying her black bouffant as she chronicles Scrooge’s past Christmases, to Jacob Marley (Rev. Bert Zug ’78) taking the form of Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce dressed as a Mummer in his 2018 Super Bowl victory parade speech, the cast of surprise characters played by EA faculty and staff always puts a hilarious spin on the classic story.
It wasn’t always this outlandish. Scrooge Chapel began in the early 1980s, when then-Director of the Arts John Muir, Hon. wanted to refresh EA’s long-running Christmas Pageant. He kept the hymns and included a new program—the retelling of the Dickens classic by EA teachers. At first, the retelling was true-to-text, with teachers like Peter Vennema, Hon. playing a haunting Jacob Marley in his iconic robes and chains.
However, it did not take long for teacher-actors to begin adding their own creative flourishes by playing the roles of the ghostly visitors as increasingly zany characters. The original Scrooge, Tony Brown ’71, would wear a Haverford scarf through the production until he swapped it for an Episcopal scarf as he came to his great epiphany. One year, Cheryl McLauchlan, Hon. performed as the Ghost of Christmas Present while dressed as an actual Christmas present. Another year, Chuck Bryant, Hon. played the same role with a thick Scottish brogue. By the mid-2000s, these ghosts took on the characters of pop culture icons that students love today.
While most of the cast changes every Christmas, certain roles have their own traditions. Despite each being over six-feet tall, Bob Bishop ’58, and later Matt Essman, played Tiny Tim. The past three Heads of School, Jay Crawford ’57, Ham Clark, Hon., and T.J. Locke, each played the boy who buys the goose at the close of the play. After the tragic passing of beloved EA teacher and longtime Jacob Marley portrayer Marc Mandeville, Hon. in 2010, Rev. Bert Zug ’78 took over the role in honor of his close friend. The prized role of Scrooge has been played by Tony Brown ’71, Paul Rosenberg, Hon., John Powell ’70, and, today, Molly Konopka, Hon. Take a look at some of Scrooge Chapel’s most memorable characters, or watch a retrospective about this fantastic holiday tradition.
