New Scrooge is tormented at Looking Glass

“He didn't grow much over the year, so he gets another shot at the role”

As he always does this time of year, Bill Winslow likely will be muttering 'Bah, humbug!' again this weekend.

Unfortunately, he'll be doing it from the audience rather than on stage this year.

For the past 16 years, Winslow has played literature's most lovable grump, Ebenezer Scrooge, in the Looking Glass Playhouse production of Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol.' As those familiar with this annual fundraiser know, once actors get a part in this play, it's usually theirs for life.

But Winslow recently has been battling serious illness and only Monday came home after a month of eating hospital gruel. So this year Mike Russell, of Mascoutah, will have to endure the ghostly visits in the middle of the night when Looking Glass stages the holiday favorite Friday through Sunday. Read more