The 1979 Broadway musical Christmas Is Comin’ Uptown is one of the versions of A Christmas Carol that often get pigeon-holed as “African American versions” but, along with John Grin’s Christmas and Ms Scrooge this tuneful adaptation transcends race and celebrates the universality of the Carol’s message. The musical continues to tour the USA to this very day and a television broadcast of a few scenes and songs from the work aired when I was a teenager and was already obsessed with variations of the story.
Gregory Hines played Scrooge in the original Broadway cast. The Scrooge in this adaptation was an inner- city slumlord about to foreclose on an apartment house, a church and a youth center. He gets the usual visits from his deceased partner and the three Christmas Ghosts and is a changed man. The urban setting is Continue reading
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