Fans of McCarter Theatre’s annual production of A Christmas Carol have come to know and love actor James Ludwig. McCarter has been adapting Charles’ Dickens’ classic novella for the stage for 35 years, and Ludwig has starred for nearly a third of the run, first as Bob Cratchit and more recently as Fred, Ebenezer Scrooge’s forgiving nephew.
It should come as no surprise that Ludwig, a Michigan native and Manhattan resident, has come to know Princeton. Four weeks of shows and four weeks of rehearsals means Ludwig and his fellow cast members spend the better part of two months in town each year.
In all that time, Ludwig has developed a fondness for Princeton’s pub culture. And he’s more than a casual observer: when he’s not working on or off Broadway or in regional theater, Ludwig and another actor, Mark Aldrich, produce and co-host “The Happy Hour Guys,” a Web TV series for craft beer enthusiasts.
For the show, the pair travels the country interviewing brewers and entrepreneurs and taking viewers on light-hearted virtual tours of America’s craft breweries. They have made more than 300 episodes since 2006. Recent shows have featured Lagunitas Brewing Company in Petaluma, California and Spider Bite Beer Company on Long Island.
Ludwig sees affinities between theater and good pub culture. “No matter how technologically advanced our society gets, theater will always be about live human beings in front of other live human beings,” he says. “Pub culture should be the same. Going to a pub is about meeting people, maybe having a conversation with someone you might not ordinarily have.”
Ludwig is more than willing to put his bar-hopping philosophy into practice for a cause. For the past two years, he has led a pub crawl through some of his favorite Princeton haunts, such as Triumph and the Alchemist and Barrister. Proceeds from the tours, organized by Planet Princeton, support a local nonprofit organization. He has agreed to lead another one on Wednesday, Dec. 16, with funds to go to the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen . Details, including which bars would be on the crawl, were still being worked out at press time, but will be posted to planetprinceton.com.
Ludwig is not the only actor who returns to McCarter year after year for A Christmas Carol. Anne O’Sullivan is a familiar face, regularly portraying Mrs. Fezziwig or Mrs. Dilber, while Graeme Malcolm is back for his sixth turn as Scrooge in 2015.
“It’s like coming home, like family,” Ludwig said of his annual Princeton engagement. “McCarter does it right. They give us four weeks of rehearsal rather than bring us in and say, ‘Just do what you did last year.’ They treat it like something very important to them and the community.”
McCarter is retiring the current production of the show, which began in 2000, after the current season. Very little has been revealed to cast and crew about how things will change, but Ludwig doesn’t expect to be asked back for a 12th year.
“We’re all really enjoying every last sweet second of this one,” he said. “Would I be interested in being involved next year? Of course I would. But I can’t count on that, because [the incoming creative team] may have ideas I won’t fit into.”
If this is the end of his run, he said, he’s grateful for the great times he’s had in Princeton—and he’ll be back next year as a member of the audience. “Theater’s a growing, live thing,” he said. “Next year this community will have a whole big new Christmas box to open.”
Graeme Malcolm as Scrooge and James Ludwig as Fred in McCarter Theatre’s 2014 production of “A Christmas Carol.” Photo by T. Charles Erickson.,
