What really happens when two childhood friends become writers and one puts the other in their novel?

The Harper Lee and Truman Capote relationship is one of the most famous literary friendships in the world. The unique aspect of the friendship of Truman Capote and Harper Lee was that, unlike most literary friendships, which usually start as adults or students, their friendship started in childhood, before each evolved into two of the most critically acclaimed, best selling and famous authors of the 20th Century. As a result, most of us are familiar with Truman Capote’s childhood, not from anything Capote wrote, but from the character Dill in Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. But in A Christmas Memory, Capote himself tells the story of his childhood in Monroeville, Alabama.

Suffer the Little Children to Come to Me. And I do mean SUFFER!!!!!!

Often at Christmas time, we are bombarded with traditional tales about compassion for the less fortunate. Besides the Biblical tale of the pregnant Mary and Joseph, having to give birth in an unhygienic stable without an epidural, there is also the Christmas Carol about Bob Cratchit’s family, who Alfred Doolittle would describe as the “Deserving Poor”.

However, the true test of “Christian” that is to say Humanitarian values is whether one can feel compassion for the “Undeserving poor.” We all know it is easy to feel compassion for people like Tiny Tim and babies born in stables, but can we feel compassion for the “Undeserving Poor”?. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, now playing on Saturday and Sunday matinees at Seattle Public Theatre addresses just this dilemma.

America’s Equivalent to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol

Although there have been adaptations in several media of Frank Capra’s classic film It’s a Wonderful Life, ArtsWest’s seems to be the only solo performance adaptation. One actor played the hero, George Bailey, as well as all the other parts, including the guardian angel who tries to prevent him from committing suicide when his there is a business crisis.