It may be his seventh time playing Scrooge in the Civic Theatre of Allentown's 23rd production of "A Christmas Carol," but actor Barry Glassman won't admit to it.

In fact, he even had the record-setting statistic stricken from his biography in the playbill for the show that opens Nov. 30 and continues through Dec. 15 at the 19th Street Theatre.

Civic Theatre Artistic Director William Sanders directs the show based on an adaptation he and Civic President of the Board Sharon Lee Glassman wrote in 1989.

"I don't want anyone to think that this isn't a special year," Glassman says, adding that audiences and fellow actors may believe seven stints portraying a particular character could wear on an actor. "And I don't want the audience to feel that this isn't special for me."

There have been many actors playing many Scrooges over the years of Civic's productions, but Glassman never expected that he would be taking Scrooge on for a seventh time. He says he once made a vow never to repeat a role, and he would have called anyone who told him otherwise "crazy."

There's always a tendency to live up to previous performances, Glassman allows, as opposed to a more "artistically-oriented" goal.

When he first took on the role in the mid-1990s, he was much younger and spent a lot of preparation time graying his hair, and ever since he's made a real effort to look at Scrooge in a new way for each performance.

He hasn't played the role since the 2009 production, and Glassman believes the benefit of life experience and age will help him bring a fresh performance to the Civic Theater stage for the holiday season.

"Lots of things have happened in terms of my maturity as an actor and, hopefully, my ability to look at him as I've gotten older," Glassman says. "I'm identifying with him differently than when I first played him in '95 or '96. I guarantee my perspective on the things he's dealing with is different now."

This year, the goal was to make Scrooge seem a little less cartoonish and overdramatic. Glassman worked with others at Civic Theater to focus on the motivation behind Scrooge's unhappy – and sometimes angry and plain old mean – personality.

Glassman says his observations of people in the real world have helped him make more sense of Scrooge as a real human being.

"There are a lot of unhappy, frustrated people who don't see how they act, and they don't see themselves as unhappy and frustrated," he explains. "It was easier to find [Scrooge] this time, much more than I've ever found him in my own mind."

In addition to a portraying a different perspective as old Scrooge, Glassman's excited to see the performances of some of his newer cast members.

Mark Collmer will be playing Jacob Marley in his first show ever.

"The Marley scene will be memorable. He is – he's spectacular. He will absolutely do a marvelous job, and I'm very excited to just be on stage with him."