A tale of tradition and transition as Ira David Wood III bequeaths the iconic role of Scrooge in Theatre in the Park’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ to his son, Ira David IV

By Anna-Rhesa Versola | Photography by John Michael Simpson

The inimitable Ira David Wood III says there’s only one moment he dreads before every performance as Ebenezer Scrooge in his musical comedy adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”; it’s pulling on those tights.

“Oh, my God,” David says, rolling his eyes about the Victorian style of dress. “And putting on that nose. Your nose can get raw underneath the rubber; when you peel it off, [it] can take off layers [of skin]. We’ve learned to put a tiny Band-Aid on the bridge of your nose, then put [Scrooge’s] nose on over that.”

This season, the founder and executive director of Theatre in the Park will officially pass the Dickensian role – along with its signature costumes – on to his eldest son, Ira David Wood IV. “I’m 76,” David says. “I just thought, while I have my faculties, and I can still move, this would be a good time to turn it over to Ira. He certainly demonstrated that he’s ready for the role. I’m sure it will be emotional when I walk off stage for the last time, but I haven’t even thought about that, because now it’s all about putting the show together.”

David’s final bow as Scrooge after playing the part for 50 years will be Dec. 17 at Durham Performing Arts Center’s 2 p.m. matinee show. Afterward, he will continue his roles as an administrator and director of the production. Ira, 38, a seasoned actor and artistic director at Theatre in the Park, has taken turns as Scrooge since 2010 when his father suffered an aortic aneurysm and underwent open heart surgery. Ira was 26 at the time, only a year younger than when David first debuted the production in 1974 in Raleigh.

“After doing it my first year, and doing the physicality [of it], seeing Dad do it in his 70s is pretty incredible – I was getting a little winded at 26,” Ira recalls. “I’m very impressed that he can still conjure up that energy and stay in that zone. It’s never really wavered in all these years. If anything, at this point, part of stepping down is just health concerns, because he won’t stop unless someone makes him.”

Main Characters

Millions in the U.S., France and England have seen David’s musical and comedic rendition of “A Christmas Carol” by this point. The show is often praised as a Broadway-quality production and one of the most successful in our state’s theater history. David, a 1970 graduate of UNC School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, has a lifelong devotion to stagecraft in North Carolina, even turning down offers from Hollywood and New York in favor of teaching, acting and directing locally. His numerous and varied accomplishments include writing and directing the opening ceremonies for the U.S. Olympic Festival in 1987, writing “A Lover’s Guide to the Outer Banks” and “Confessions of an Elf,” and winning a Tony Honor for Excellence in Theatre award when he was artistic director for “The Lost Colony” in 2013.

He says his greatest joy is his family. He and his wife, Ashley Mattox Wood, have a son, Thomas Miller Wood, 11, who’s played the role of Tiny Tim. David’s two adult children from his first marriage to acting coach Sara Lynn Moore, Ira and Evan Rachel Wood, 36, have also shared the stage with their father.

David expects to see his daughter return home for this year’s alumni cast reunion, which will include actors who began their careers with Theatre in the Park, like Frankie Muniz of “Malcolm in the Middle” and Michael C. Hall of “Dexter.” Evan is most recently known for her starring role as Dolores Abernathy in the TV series “Westworld.”

David says generations of families see “A Christmas Carol” as their holiday tradition. “One night during the lullaby, I saw a grandfather, father and grandchild sitting together on the front row,” he says. “The lights are right on us, and that’s the one time in the show that I can really look out if I want to, and I saw the grandfather reach over the grandson and put his hand on the shoulder of his son. And then I saw them both touch the child in the middle. And I thought, ‘Oh, wow. They know.’ That’s the gift. They’re all there to share it together. And they won’t always be there. It just floored me. It makes me emotional just to talk about it. But that was the gift – to see that song and that moment in the show. They got it. That’s what you live for – to get those moments where they understand.”

Exposition

For Ira and his sister, the theater was their playhouse. “They would go into the prop shop and get their swords and run around,” David says. “They used to have their sleeping bags offstage. We were doing ‘Othello,’ and their mother was playing Desdemona, and I was playing Iago. They were sleeping offstage in the prop room, and when the door was open, they could look out onto the stage. They would wake up every night and watch their mother getting strangled to death. They would look at each other and go, ‘Mom did really, really great. Great death scene, Mom!’ And they’d go back to sleep.”

David says he is looking forward to watching how Scrooge’s character develops under Ira’s direction. “He does stuff that I can’t do,” David says. “He does a Christopher Walken imitation that just puts me out. It’s hysterical. And he’s woven it into the show. We still do a lot of topical humor, which I think people have come to really enjoy – it’s one way to demonstrate that the story still matters. When I’m seeing Jacob Marley when he first appears, I’m like, ‘President Biden, is that you?’ We take a little shot at both sides of the aisle. And I think people have gotten used to that. The audience knows what we’re doing, and they go along.”

With his father’s blessing, Ira will carry the traditions forward. “It’s been a gift that I have loved and treasured growing up,” Ira says. “It’s a responsibility, but it’s definitely a pleasure. I’m excited to see what can be accomplished in the future.”

Denouement

Ira says he was 6 or 7 years old when he sat on the stairs Christmas morning, feeling sad. His father asked what was the matter. “I said, ‘My Christmas wish was for your dad to be here to celebrate Christmas,’” Ira says of his grandfather, who passed away when David was 12. “And [Dad] said, ‘Well, you know, I think he is.’ I think that moment sticks out because it was an early lesson about what Christmas is and its meaning. Charles Dickens did a wonderful job tapping into that therapy.”

Christmas is about transformation, David says. “I’ve always thought, if you can laugh at Scrooge, you’re laughing at yourself, because there’s a little bit of Scrooge in everybody,” he says. Throughout the performance, the audience follows the main character’s evolution. And then, there comes a moment on stage that David holds as long as he can.

“Nobody breathes; nobody moves,” he says of the close to 2,400 people in a typical Raleigh audience and 2,700 people in Durham. “It’s silence. It’s stillness. It’s Christmas. When Scrooge starts to sing, the tears start, and everything that we’ve done for an hour and 50 minutes has led up to that moment. I’ve said to the cast that if you put your hand up, there’s a force you can feel, and it’s the love that comes across that stage and is returned to the audience. In the end – I’ve said it over and over – the gift is to the giver. We’ve worked our hearts and bodies to get to that moment, and all we have to do is relax and feel it. People cry. People laugh. It’s just a happy, happy moment. And there’s no better way to leave an audience when that curtain closes.”