Mark Robbins as Scrooge (photo by Don Ipock)
And so the torch is passed.
Veteran actor Mark Robbins is now, according to Kansas City Repertory Theatre, the new Scrooge.
That puts him in direct line of succession to his colleague and old friend Gary Neal Johnson, who after last year’s edition of A Christmas Carol, decided the time was right to retire after 25 seasons of playing skinflint Ebenezer Scrooge in the annual holiday production.
But Robbins isn’t coming to the show or the role cold. He’s been in the Christmas Carol orbit for about as long as Johnson. In fact, most recently he was Johnson’s understudy and played Scrooge for the student matinees — daytime performances for school groups — to allow Johnson all the energy he needed for the evening performances.
Kansas City has been Robbins’ home base since 1979. He is a veteran of productions at most of the professional companies in Kansas City. He continues to enjoy a reputation as one of Kansas City’s finest actors. I’ve seen him perform in dumb dinner-theater farces. I’ve seen him in Shakespearean tragedies, history plays and comedies. I’ve seen him in hard-nosed David Mamet plays, dark comedies about hit men by Ron Simonian, American classics by Lillian Hellman and seriocomic rules-breaking plays by Anglo-Irish playwright Martin McDonagh.
Not once did I see Robbins phone it in. In KCRep’s 2015 production of Angels in America, he delivered a riveting, career-best performance as the notorious New York lawyer Roy Cohn.
With a resume that screams versatility and decades of experience as a performer in A Christmas Carol, it made perfect sense when KCRep announced in June that he would take over the role of Scrooge in their 2026 edition of A Christmas Carol.
This all came about when Johnson announced his retirement last year. Like Johnson, Robbins had played a range of parts in the annual holiday production of the Charles Dickens classic. Starting in 1984, Robbins played Bob Cratchit (Scrooge’s underpaid clerk), the Storyteller (aka Dickens), Old Joe (the pawnbroker who buys Scrooge’s property in one nightmarish vision of the future), and the ghost of Jacob Marley.
“And one unforgettable star turn as Albert Hall, a party guest,” Robbins said. “I can’t believe they paid me an Equity contract to play Albert Hall, but they did. And I was grateful.”
Robbins, 72, considers himself semi-retired these days. That mindset kicked in when he turned 65.
“It was a day of liberation of sorts,” Robbins said. “Because I realized I don’t have to take every job that comes along, thanks to Social Security and my Actors’ Equity pension — not that I haven’t enjoyed every single acting gig.”
Robbins said his take on Scrooge might be unique in certain ways but saw no reason to offer a radically different approach. He wants to provide continuity for theatergoers who have been attending the show for years.
“Gary’s stamp on this production and this play is indelible,” Robbins said. “I think I might be a little meaner, maybe. But I’m naturally just kind of meaner. There aren’t any huge revelations that I would bring to the role. He did a great job, so why not just steal where I can, when I can? We don’t want to shock anyone.”
Robbins was born in Oklahoma City and studied theater at Webster College (now Webster University) in St. Louis. He moved on to graduate school at Wayne State University in Detroit. There he met a number of young actors who would become friends and colleagues in Kansas City. Among them were Jim Birdsall, Larry Greer and the late David Fritts.
The school’s performances followed a rotating repertory schedule — meaning that a permanent company of actors would perform a staggered season of plays. An individual actor might play the lead in one show and a supporting role in another. That also happened to be the format at what was then called Missouri Repertory Theater when Robbins arrived in 1979.
“I love rotating repertory theater,” Robbins said. “It’s apparently now financially untenable. But it was a great thing.”
Robbins said he was not underestimating the challenge of a lead role in a long run.
“It’s daunting,” he said. “But the nice thing is someone will be brought in to be my understudy and that person will also do the student matinees. I know that it was helpful to Gary and I get the benefit of that new tradition. It’s daunting but it’s exciting. And I am excited to perform before adults to see if they can match the energy levels of the audience at the student matinees.”
And those matinees fill an important role that goes beyond giving the lead actor a crucial bit of time to recharge his batteries for the evening performances.
“There’s a real thrill of doing a play for people who very likely have not seen any play before,” Robbins said. “So it might be their first Christmas Carol but it might be their first live theater. There’s nothing quite like Marley coming up from out of the ground in a student matinee audience who have never seen that before. They lose their minds.”
And the hope is that some of those kids will become adult theatergoers.
“I like to think some of those students will become theater patrons. Even if this is the only show they ever see, what an incredible story to witness for that one time. That message needs to be out there and accessible to everybody.”
KCRep’s 2026 production of A Christmas Carol will run from Nov. 21 to Dec. 24, 2026, at the Spencer Theatre. For tickets and more information, kcrep.org.
