Who is this Anita Gates you speak of?

A.G.’s journalistic triumphs over 25 years at The New York Times include drinking with Bea Arthur (at a Trump hotel), Wendy Wasserstein (at an Italian restaurant) and Peter O’Toole (in his trailer on a mini-series set near Dublin). It is sheer coincidence that these people are now dead.

At The New York Times, she has been Arts & Leisure television editor and co-film editor, a theater reviewer on WQXR Radio, a film columnist for the Times TV Book and an editor in the Culture, Book Review, Travel, National, Foreign and Metro sections. Her first theater review for The Times appeared in 1997, assessing “Mrs. Cage,” a one-act about a housewife suspected of shooting her favorite supermarket box boy. The review was mixed.

Outside The Times, A.G. has been the author of four nonfiction books; a longtime writer for travel magazines, women's magazines and travel guidebooks; a lecturer at universities and for women’s groups; and a moderator for theater, book, film and television panels at the 92nd Street Y and the Paley Center for Media.

If she were a character on “Mad Men,” she’d be Peggy.

Elderly British Miser and Multiple Ghosts Found in Rip Torn's House

Anita Gates
Photograph by Lou Montesano

Photograph by Lou Montesano

THE NOTORIOUS LONDON skinflint Ebenezer Scrooge (Elmore James) and his backup singers, above, in "A Christmas Carol" at 435 West 22nd Street in Manhattan, through Dec. 15. 

THE SPIRITS OF CHRISTMAS PAST here are Geraldine Page and Rip Torn; they lived in this 19th-century Chelsea townhouse (and presumably celebrated holidays there) until Page's death in 1987. Now the rest of us can visit the couple's cozy upstairs parlor, have a slice of mince pie and a warm glass of mulled red wine, and let Charles Dickens's mid-19th-century story of Ebenezer Scrooge and his ghostly visitors just wash over us in this intimate solo show.

The very impressive performer is Elmore James, who is an opera veteran as well as an actor (so his "O Holy Night" is a particular treat). Using Dickens's original performance text, Mr. James doesn't do all the character voices, as some "Christmas Carol" performers do, but the production's sound effects (church bells, foreboding weather and the like) add lots of atmosphere.

A little farther downtown, John Kevin Jones is starring in the solo "Christmas Carol" performance at the Merchant's House Museum. The setting there is the 1832 landmark building's Greek Revival double parlor, and performances run through Dec. 31,

And on 42nd Street, a theater company called MOD is presenting "A Christmas Carol" at the Beckett Theater through Dec. 17. It's practically a cast of thousands: eight actors total, playing some 57 characters. 

For details on all three productions, see the Press Nights Off Broadway Guide.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The reference above to Page and Torn as the spirits of Christmas Past does not mean to suggest that Torn is no longer with us. He will be 87 in February.

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Polly Draper Looks Too Young

Polly Draper Looks Too Young