Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By ZACHARY MARANO
Ironwood — The Historic Ironwood Theatre is offering its annual Christmas show this weekend, celebrating a “historic HIT Christmas” with screenings of the 1910 silent film adaptation of “A Christmas Carol,” followed by a concert of seasonal songs by local musicians.
The first performance will be at 7 p.m. on Saturday, and a Sunday matinee is planned for 2 p.m.
The movie will be accompanied by frequent organist at the theater, Tim Mesun, who will perform his specially composed, original score for the film on the theater’s Barton organ. The organ was installed when the theater opened as a silent movie house in 1928 and is one of only six in its original place of installation in the country, as many theaters removed their organs at the end of the silent film era.
Because silent movies were often accompanied by live organ music, the theater says that this is an opportunity to celebrate Christmas the same way that our grandparents and great-grandparents would have.
This adaption of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” was released on Dec. 23, 1910, and was directed by J. Searle Dawley. It stars Marc McDermott as Ebenezer Scrooge and Charles S. Ogle as Bob Cratchit. After the 1901 British silent film “Scrooge, or, Marley’s Ghost,” it is the second oldest surviving film adaptation of Dickens’s Christmas classic.
After the movie, Mesun will perform classic holiday songs on stage with other local musicians, including John Grewe, Don Osier and Desiree Walowinski.
According to the theater website, online ticket sales will close one hour before showtime and tickets will still be available at the door up until showtime.
