BLACK ‘TINY TIM’ DRAWS REACTION

CHICAGO —  When Gregory Mosher of the prestigious Goodman Theater set out to cast “A Christmas Carol,” he wanted the “community on stage to reflect the community coming to see the play.”

That’s how a 7-year-old black youngster whose only previous stage credit was as a pumpkin in his elementary school play landed the role of Tiny Tim, the crippled child at the center of Charles Dickens’ classic tale of redemption.

While “A Christmas Carol” was being previewed last week, Mosher received a handful of letters that labeled his choice of Eric Styles over 350 other children to portray Tiny Tim “threatening and shocking.”

“Angry letters, and they almost always come from people who have not seen the play,” said Mosher, the white artistic director who was criticized shortly after taking the post in 1978 when he cast black actor Paul Winfield in Henrik Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People.”

One letter said, “Dickens wrote Tiny Tim as a little English boy,” underlining the word English, Mosher said. Eight of the 27 actors are black.

But several people leaving the theater Wednesday on the second night of a five-night run had only praise for Mosher’s casting.

“I think it was a great decision exactly because you don’t notice it,” George McClellan said. “It’s not trying to be a social statement or a slap in the face or a gimmick to attract attention.”

Said Mosher: “Theater exists to bring people into a room to experience things of common concern,” he said. “And an opportunity like this--a beautiful theater, the financial and talent resources of a community--should not be wasted by being afraid to confront what ‘A Christmas Carol’ is all about. And that is that we are all in this together and we better well learn we have much, much, much more in common than in difference.”

For his part, Eric is having a wonderful time, and describes being on stage for almost half of the 90-minute production as “neat.”