Charles Shaughnessy — who’s found success acting in television series including “Days of Our Lives” and “The Nanny,” as well as in numerous roles in film and onstage — never thought he’d be much for musical theater.
“When I was at drama school, I was voted least likely to ever do a musical,” he said in a recent interview.
But his perspective changed in 2003, thanks to the Pittsburgh CLO. Shaughnessy was cast as Henry Higgins in a CLO production of “My Fair Lady,” and he caught the singing onstage bug.
“(I) had a wonderful time. And since then, I’ve enjoyed doing these musical shows. Almost every year, I’ve done something somewhere,” he said.
He’s returned twice to Pittsburgh CLO, once to play Captain Hook in the 2019 production of “Peter Pan,” and now to portray Scrooge in this year’s “A Musical Christmas Carol,” which opens Friday at the Byham Theater in Downtown Pittsburgh.
“It’s such a joyful and special show to do at this time of year … especially with all the rancor that we have going on around us. It’s sort of strangely more topical and more important than ever this year, so I’m very excited to be doing it,” he said.
The CLO has been mounting “A Musical Christmas Carol” for 32 years, bringing well-known holiday music into the timeless tale of Ebenezer Scrooge.
Even though he’s most well-known for playing Shane Donovan in the long-running soap opera “Days of Our Lives” and Max Sheffield in the 1990s sitcom “The Nanny,” Shaughnessy said that his spiritual home as an actor is the stage.
“It’s really real acting, you get to create a character over a rehearsal period and then he lives for two and a half hours in a world that you create with other people, uninterrupted. So you get to get inside a skin, and it’s a sort of almost a Zen-like experience, you know, Charles Shaughnessy is left behind for two and a half hours. You’re Ebenezer Scrooge,” he said.
He’s grateful for his success in other media, too. “I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to have a career where I’ve been able to do both — where my TV work has sort of paid for my stage work, which has been an extraordinarily lucky thing to have happened.”
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Shaughnessy was born in London, England, and is the fifth Baron Shaughnessy, a title he inherited from his second cousin in 2007. His great-grandfather, Thomas George Shaughnessy, president of Canadian Pacific Railway, was made the first Baron Shaughnessy in 1916. He also comes from a showbiz family; his father, mother and brother, David Shaughnessy, have all been involved in writing, acting or directing.
He knew what direction he was going by the time he was 4 or 5 years old. “At school, we were reading out loud in class and I used to love reading out loud. You know, the teacher would say ‘Who wants to read?’ and everyone would dive under their desks, but I would stick my hand up.”
He had his first taste of the stage in a school play of “Peter Rabbit.”
“I assumed I’d be Peter Rabbit and I wasn’t, I was Third Bluebird from the Left, and my friend was Peter Rabbit. And I had this surge of fury and upset and jealousy and I didn’t want to be his friend anymore and it was just miserable. And at the same time as I had that reaction, I realized another part of me stood outside watching that and said to myself, ‘Wow, that’s interesting. This really upsets you. This is obviously something much more important to you than you realize.’ And that was the first inkling I had that basically reading out loud, being the center of attention and telling stories was something very important to me.”
Still, his favorite role of his career came with his first Pittsburgh CLO appearance. “I guess I would have to say Henry Higgins in ‘My Fair Lady’ sort of fits me like a glove. It’s just one of those roles where it suits me as an actor, my personality and what I bring to things.”
He sees the versatility of his career as an asset. “Some people have huge success at one particular role, and it gets very difficult to get out from under it. I’ve been very fortunate that I sort of bounced around from different media and different roles and from drama to comedy to even a little singing if they let me.”
Shaughnessy is looking forward to bringing Scrooge to the stage, but before deciding to play the role, he wasn’t all that familiar with the Charles Dickens novella. In fact, he’d never read “A Christmas Carol” until bringing the story to the stage.
“I was pleasantly surprised at how deep it is. It’s not just the kind of fun show about a grumpy old man who becomes a nice old man. You know, there’s really quite important stuff in it and some great lines,” he said.
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He also hopes that this Christmas story will bring joy and generosity to a world that feels divided and resentful right now.
“It’s important that it’s not just the 25th of December, but something that you take into your heart all year round. That’s important to take seriously, as well as being a joyous and fun show with lots of carols and pageantry and singing and famous characters,” he said.
“A Musical Christmas Carol” will run from Dec. 13-22 at the Byham Theater in Downtown Pittsburgh. Get tickets at pittsburghclo.org