Bob Inman Re-examines Dickens’ Holiday Classic
A High Country Christmas Carol in Blowing Rock through Dec. 14

By Jeff Eason

The Blowing Rock Stage Company is in the middle of its world premiere production of the new Bob Inman holiday play A High Country Christmas Carol (through Dec. 14 at the Hayes Center). The play, set in the mountains of North Carolina during the Great Depression, is based on the Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol.

Author Bob Inman’s fifth play, A High Country Christmas Carol, opened last weeked at the Hayes Performing Arts Center in Blowing Rock and runs through December 14.

Inman, a noted novelist and former Charlotte television news anchor, has written four previous plays, all of which have had their premiere with the Blowing Rock Stage Company.

The relationship between the playwright and the stage company has been particularly fruitful as his previous works, Crossroads, The Christmas Bus, Dairy Queen Days, and Jan Karon’s Journey to Mitford, are among the most popular works staged by the company. These plays have taken on lives of their own and have since been produced by stage companies all over North America.

The Mountain Times caught up with Bob Inman two days before A High Country Christmas Carol opened in Blowing Rock to find out about the new play. Here is a portion of that interview:

The Mountain Times: This marks the fifth time that you’ve staged a world premiere of one of your plays at the Blowing Rock Stage Company. How has that collaboration worked out?

Bob Inman: I’m sort of an unofficial ‘playwright in residence’ for the stage company. Seriously, I wouldn’t be a playwright if it weren’t for this place. That first idea I had for Crossroads, Ken (BRSC producer Ken Kay) said, “Come on, let’s see what will happen.” And that’s what started it all. I didn’t know anything about playwriting or play production at that point. And really what I learned about playwriting is what I’ve learned by doing here. Ken has been so great at directing and producing that I’ve learned a lot of the tricks of the trade from him.

MT: What made you want to write another Christmas play?

BI: Well, Ken and I started talking about it two or three years ago. Ken wanted a signature piece that would be a holiday piece but would have the flavor of this area. Something that he could bring back maybe ever couple of years and it would be identified with the area and with the stage company. The more we got to talking about it, the more we talked about the Dickens classic, which has been adapted so many times. It is, in some ways, worn out. So I was looking for a fresh approach and I thought about setting it in the Great Depression because it was so tough here. It was tough everywhere but people here were trying to scrape a living out of the ground, doing whatever they could do to survive. A lot of them left. They went to the flatlands because they couldn’t survive here.

So it went from there. It started with the setting: the time and place.

MT: Who is your Ebenezer Scrooge character?

BI: I reinvented Ebenezer Scrooge with a character called Silas McTavish. He was raised in Liverpool but came to the United States in the early 1900s to seek his fame and fortune…or at least his fortune. He thought it would be a great idea to come to the mountains and set up a general store. Then the Depression hit.

He is the most successful merchant in the area and he hoards his money. He’s a skinflint and a miser and a curmudgeon. He could be doing a lot to help people but he doesn’t. He just watches every penny.

MT: Who are the Cratchit characters?

BI: In his general store, Silas has a clerk named Abner Veazey. And Abner’s son Caleb is a teenager working in the store. They both work for pennies.

Part of the story takes place with Abner and his wife Dolly and their family at home, just the way it does with Cratchit and his family in the Dickens story.

MT: Do you replicate the more supernatural aspects of Dickens’ tale?

BI: It was interesting, going back and rereading the Dickens. It occurred to me that I could do this story with one visitor. So I have a mysterious stranger who shows up in the middle of the night and he serves the purpose of Marley’s ghost and the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future.

He becomes a very strong character. He is called “the guest” and we track him and Silas throughout the whole story.

MT: Your previous plays have relied on original music for mood, does this one?

BI: There’s no original music this time. I picked traditional Christmas music that seemed to fit, mainly using it as a transition between scenes. There is some caroling on stage by some kids. But most of it is recorded instrumental music that are renditions of songs that have a mountain flavor: guitar, fiddle, etcetera. Gary Smith has chosen music that really fits the time and place of the play.

MT: Do you participate in the rehearsal process?

BI: I have been here since the beginning. I love the rehearsal process because I sit here and watch them and I begin to discover things about the piece. The cast begins to discover things that I didn’t know were in the script. So I add them to the script. It’s not so much changing major things as much as tweaking it. The story structure and the characters don’t change, but lines of dialogue and setting up things do. There are always some little polishes we can do during the rehearsal process. I love that. I like being part of the process. You know, it’s just words on a page. And then they take it and bring it life. I love that.