Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
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NORTHSHOREMAG.COM 38 DECEMBER 2020 F A C E S + P L A C E S If ever there was a year when the words "Bah Humbug" were befitting to describe our state of mind, it is 2020. Here on the North Shore, however, those two words are surprisingly endearing. We have all grown to love hearing them spoken by our favorite character actor, David Coffee, who brilliantly embodies Ebenezer Scrooge in North Shore Music Theatre's (NSMT) annual production of A Christmas Carol. Last December marked Coffee's 26th year bringing life to Dickens's iconic cold- hearted miser. He first appeared in the NSMT production in 1992 at the age of 35. For almost three decades, he has performed the role of Scrooge to well over one million theatergoers. Throughout all those productions, his understudy has never gone on, including during a run of the show where he tore his SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS PHOTOGRAPHS BY PAUL LYDEN Actor David Coffee has played Christmas's most beloved curmudgeonly character for more than 25 years on North Shore Music Theatre's stage. BY K AREN NASCEMBENI meniscus rolling over in Scrooge's bed during the first act. He has performed in 60 different musical productions at NSMT. So many, in fact, that most patrons assume he lives here on the North Shore. It might surprise you to know that Coffee hails from Arlington, Texas, a suburb of Fort Worth where he was born 63 years ago this past September. A kindhearted, jovial man with a heavy southern accent, his off-stage personality is much more akin to the happy Scrooge you meet at the conclusion of A Christmas Carol. From the moment he arrives on campus, Coffee bedazzles every inch of NSMT 's star dressing room with Christmas lights, garland, tinsel, and holly. NSMT 's wardrobe supervisor, Kat Shanahan, describes him as a "real-life Santa Claus known for giving Scenes from A Christmas Carol at the North Shore Music Theatre. gifts to every single cast and crew member working on the show." NSMT's costume manager, Kelly Baker, says of Coffee, "When he comes down for fittings, he always stops and says hello to everyone working in the costume shop and introduces himself to any newcomers. We lovingly refer to it as 'David Coffee Day.' It marks the beginning of Christmas for me." Prior to each performance, it takes Coffee 45 minutes to transform his youthful, shiny,