What was Scrooge like as a child? Park Ridge seventh-grader portrays him at Goodman Theatre

When he was about four or five, Leighton Tantillo would sit down at his parents’ piano and tinker, until his musician parents’ eyes lit up and they got him a piano teacher, they said. He started writing music at 7, then playing drums, and his interest in the arts grew until, at age 12, the Park Ridge native is appearing in the Goodman Theatre’s production of “A Christmas Carol.”

Tantillo, a seventh-grader at Lincoln Middle School in Park Ridge-Niles School District 64, is playing protagonist Ebenezer Scrooge as a child, as well as Peter Cratchit, the older son of Scrooge’s long-suffering employee Bob Cratchit.

He’s spent the past few weeks rehearsing, until the show officially opened Nov. 26, and getting used to the Goodman and the play’s large cast, which includes some luminaries in Chicago theater.

“It’s amazing. It’s so nice to be with all these amazingly talented people. It just gets better every single day,” Tantillo said.

In the process of rehearsing, he has learned a little about the conditions in which poor Londoners lived in Victorian England. The fictional Cratchits have to send young Peter to work in a boot-blacking factory, just as playwright Charles Dickens had to do in that era when his father was sent to debtors’ prison, according to the UK National Archives.

“I think Peter is unaware of the harsh conditions,” Tantillo ventured. “Low pay, and being treated like Mr. Scrooge treats Bob Cratchit.”

He also surmised that Peter would have to drop out of school.

Kerry Tantillo, Leighton’s mom, noted that the Goodman has been welcoming to the young performers, or child actors, like Leighton, saying that Thomas J. Cox, who has played Bob Cratchit for several years, approached the parents to greet them.

“He said ‘these kids make the production what it is,’” she recalled.

Chicago theater veteran Larry Yando, who is in his 16th year playing Scrooge, according to the Goodman, went up to Leighton on the first day and said, “’I hear you’re playing the younger me.’ He was being friendly and welcoming,” Kerry Tantillo recounted.

The welcome wasn’t lost on Leighton Tantillo.

“Larry Yando is so talented and amazing,” the child actor said. “I can never imagine another Scrooge. His speaking voice and his acting is amazing.”

While the Goodman has been encouraging, Kerry Tantillo noted that Leighton’s school has been so as well.

“The principal at Lincoln, David Szwed, has been extremely supportive. He said ‘you have to take this opportunity because it’s so awesome,’” Kerry Tantillo said.

“We had a meeting with the teacher, Mrs. Sebo, and she said, “you’re memorizing scripts; maybe we could use that as a reading assignment instead of a book.”

Kerry Tantillo also noted Leighton has had down time during rehearsals to do school work, but he can be very tired at the end of the day. She said Leighton’s brother, a Maine South High School student, is all about sports, while his sister, a student at Washington School, has been in some plays and takes lessons at Lynnette’s School of Dance in Park Ridge. Leighton also takes dance lessons there in an effort to broaden his arts skill set, his mother said.

That skill set gave Leighton his first big break into the theater world this past spring. He was taking drum lessons at the School of Rock in Park Ridge when representatives from a production of “School of Rock” at the Paramount Theater in Aurora inquired whether any child musicians wanted to try out. Because of his music skills, Leighton landed a lead role, Kerry Tantillo said.

“He did like 50 shows and realized this is my purpose; I need to do this,” Kerry reflected.

“This has all happened very fast. During School of Rock, all the kids had agents and we felt so behind. So we reached out to a couple agencies and Stewart Talent agency picked him up.”

The agents directed the Tantillos to have Leighton try out for “A Christmas Carol” at an open call last summer.

“They just kept calling him back, and then rehearsals started around end of October,” Kerry Tantillo said.

Leighton is also slated to appear in “The Music Man” at Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Arlington Heights in February, she added.

The Goodman experience, however, is providing Leighton with new opportunities.

“He’s meeting people he probably wouldn’t normally be in a room with,” Kerry Tantillo said. “Mr. Fezziwig this year is played by a deaf actor and they’re doing sign language. Leighton has learned so much from him. The diversity of this cast-- you’ve got representation from everything, and it’s really cool.

“So Leighton learned a lot of sign language and he’s friends with Robert and they’re learning history and it’s really cool.”

For his part, Leighton has caught the theater bug.

“I want to say how fun it is every day to be performing in this,” he said of the Goodman experience. “It feels different every day.”