Lasting Legacies with Bob Fischbach: “Dick Boyd”

Only one actor in 100 years of Omaha Community Playhouse history can claim a total box office of more than half a million people.

That’s Dick Boyd.

Cast as Scrooge in Charles Jones’ adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” in 1976, Boyd went on to play the role for 30 years, 818 performances, without ever missing a show. That’s a total attendance of 442,770, plus preview nights. The role earned him the Playhouse’s annual top acting award, the Fonda-McGuire, in 1977. But he also won the Fonda-McGuire playing Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in “Mountain.” He earned best lead actor in a musical as Ben Rumson in “Paint Your Wagon.” He delighted audiences in “On Golden Pond” opposite the impeccable Mary Peckham, and in “Look Homeward, Angel” with equally delightful Susie Baer Collins. Jones also cast Boyd in the title role of “Galileo” in February 1976 and “Breaking Legs” in 1995. Even before Jones arrived in 1974, Boyd was in “Julius Caesar,” “Little Mary Sunshine” and “Kiss Me Kate” at OCP.

John Bennett, former music director at the Playhouse who orchestrated “A Christmas Carol,” said Boyd’s strong baritone was one of the best singing voices in the cast. Yet Boyd almost didn’t audition for the role that made him an Omaha icon. There was stiff competition from veteran actors Bob Roberts, Al DiMauro and Bill Kohl. Boyd thought Bill Bailey, an old pro off the Orpheum vaudeville circuit, was a shoo-in.

After Boyd did try out, the casting team worried he was too young at 53. All but one, that is — the show’s writer and director. Charles Jones later revealed that he preferred how Boyd brought out the joy of redemption in Scrooge. And he wanted a realistic portrayal, not a caricature, said Jones’ wife, the late Eleanor Brodie Jones.Though the show was supposed to run one year only, audiences clamored for more. Box office demand kept Boyd coming back. The show became so popular that the Playhouse’s professional touring arm eventually took it on the road with as many as three additional casts each year from 1980 to 2016.

In all, OCP’s “A Christmas Carol” has had nearly 140 casts, seen by nearly 4 million people in 49 states and four Canadian provinces. “Carol” gave the Playhouse a national profile and propelled it to become the nation’s largest community theatre. But it all started with Charles Jones’ script, Jim Othuse’s scenery, Joanne Cady’s choreography, John Bennett’s score — and Dick Boyd’s Scrooge. Once he had the role, he never stopped trying to find new facets of the character.

And he never tired of it, even while teaching full time during many of those years. Knee replacements, the flu, howling winter storms — nothing kept Boyd from a performance. “I’ve gotten more out of this show than they’ve ever gotten out of me, I guarantee,” Boyd said just before his final run opened in 2005. “Just doing the show is the reward. It’s great to look forward to, every time.” Boyd said his biggest challenge was making Scrooge’s transformation from “Bah, humbug” to “Merry Christmas” believable — especially that pivot from anguish to joy, all in the rush of a moment.

But his favorite scene, he said, was chasing the children out of Scrooge’s office. “The kids get such a kick out of it, getting the best of me,” he said. “They never get tired of it.” Before she died last year, “Carol” choreographer Cady said Boyd was great with kid actors. “At the first cast meeting, he makes sure he goes to each new child, finds out their name, gets to know a tiny bit about them” she said. “And the past-year kids just run to hug him.”

Backstage, Boyd never acted the star. “If you were in the cast with Dick, you were just as special as he was,” said Geoffrey Jones, Charles’ son. “And because he worked so hard, nobody wanted to disappoint him. He led by example.” The late Jim Eisenhardt, a longtime high school theatre teacher and OCP board member, agreed in an interview shortly before he died last year. “You knew who the leader was, not because he took charge, but because you could look to him and understand how to rehearse, how to prepare. That was the teacher in him.” Geoffrey Jones said Boyd didn’t really act. “He just goes out and gives you his whole heart. He’d live it every single night. By the end of the show he was soaking in sweat.”

Born in May 1922 in Nebraska City, Boyd married Miriam Hieronymus, daughter of the former president of Midland College in Fremont, Neb., in 1950. They had four children. Eventually Miriam joined the “Carol” cast for 17 years just to be with him each November and December. A daughter also was in the show. Boyd earned his bachelor’s degree at Midland, then a Master’s at UNL. A World War II veteran of the South Pacific, he taught for 33 years — 28 as a middle school language arts teacher in Council Bluffs. He won the district’s outstanding teacher award in 1988. When Charles Jones died in 2005, Boyd delivered the funeral eulogy.

Actor-director Jim McKain called Boyd “a very gracious man. When I was given the Dick Boyd Award (for lifetime contribution to OCP), the next morning he called to congratulate me. It was so gracious. He was in his 90s, but he called.” Boyd himself died in June of 2020. He was 98. “Everybody loved Dick,” said dancer-actress Janet Ratekin Williams, who played violin in the “Carol” orchestra for its first 10 years. “He was just the nicest guy. Every night at curtain call he’d lean over the orchestra pit and wave. He never forgot us.” Omaha audiences have not forgotten Boyd.

Cork Ramer, who played Scrooge on the road for 18 years and now leads the mainstage cast, recalls an afternoon of laughs with Boyd and Matt Kamprath, another longtime touring Scrooge. The three roamed OCP’s halls, lampooning one another’s performances.

“Matt was the funny Scrooge, I was the mean Scrooge and Dick was the sentimental one,” Ramer said. “Such a warm, gentle, kind human being. And he took that and gave it to audiences.”