Professor Tony Lentz is shouting. He's causing a commotion so loud and boisterous that nearby people are starting to notice. But he's not upset.

He is practicing for an event which gives him pleasure every year, an event that others take pleasure in as well. Lentz getting ready for his annual one-man rendition of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, which he will perform at 8 p.m. on Dec. 16 at the Pine Grove Mills Presbyterian Church, on state Route 45.

For Lentz, who works in the speech communication department, it began in December of 1965. As a freshman at the University of North Carolina, Lentz wandered into a reading of A Christmas Carol read by Professor Earl Wynn.

Lentz recalls, "It was a big old room, big couches, a fireplace and big windows overlooking a wooded rose garden. And in the wintertime the trees were bare, and the roses were dead, and it was a pretty dramatic picture with these bare trees across these big windows. It had a real warm feeling with this brass band playing Christmas carols. Earl walked up to the lectern and started to do all these great voices and faces." Lentz's face crinkles as he mimics Wynn's "Bah Humbug."

"It wasn't one of those moments where you think this is what I want to do with my life. I didn't have that sensation, but it brought the story alive for me."

So it became a tradition for Lentz.

He went back every year because Wynn did it every year. It was a practice that went back to 1920. After one person gave it up another took over. Later, Lentz worked as a newspaper reporter for a year, but he didn't want to be an editor. He enjoyed writing and interviewing, and it seemed as though the only way to advance was to become an editor. So, Lentz started teaching at a small Baptist college in North Carolina where he had the opportunity to begin the reading of A Christmas Carol, which he did for two years.

"I bought a copy of the book, and cut my own version of the script based on my memory of what Earl had done and his presentation. I ended up with a version twice as long as his," said Lentz with a chuckle. "It is an oral tradition because I think each of the gentlemen who did it has heard the one who preceded them. So everything I do doesn't come from Earl. Obviously if he did one hour and I do two hours, there's a great deal of difference. But his Scrooge is echoing around in my ears when I do it. You learned it from someone who taught you the piece and taught you the way they sang it."

However, sometimes Lentz gets the characters from the audience and his own imagination.

"A good performer is always looking for ways to keep the material from getting stale. You have a vocabulary of possibilities that you might pull out of the air, so that during any given performance, depending on how the audience is reacting, you might do it differently."

Lentz said, "One night I had an audience that was just rolling with me as well. They were just catching every little funny line, every little alive thing that Dickens threw at them. I was raising my eyebrows, and they were chuckling. And that night I found myself at the point where Scrooge is waking up and he realizes he has another chance, and he just goes berserk, bouncing around his bedroom dancing. And I have it in my imagination, Scrooge's delight."

Lentz then imitates Scrooges happiness. "Hellllllo there hoooooo howww are you." He's screaming at the top of his lungs because he's so glad he's alive and he has another chance.

"That particular night the audience was with me, and we both kind of got there together, and I just kind of danced completely away from the lectern and away from the script. I knew the words well enough that I was comfortable doing that. I could get back to the lectern in time to get the next paragraph. It just happened naturally."

Lentz continued, "And I tell my students in my oral reading class that you can learn from the audience. Each audience is a little bit different, so they force you to do that. Each audience has their own personality and responds differently, so you kind of have to go with what works with them. It's like when you're dating. If you go out with someone who likes sports, you talk about sports. If you go out with someone else who likes art, you talk about Shakespeare."

But sometimes you can never tell how people are responding, some people just aren't very expressive themselves, Lentz said. A good example of this is Paul Harner, a regular at Lentz's annual performance. He has a lot of regulars. Harner came out every Christmas until last year, due to his hip. Fortunately, he was able to listen to the audio version played on WPSU-FM. But when Harner comes, many times he will sit with his eyes closed. At first, Lentz had wondered if he had fallen asleep. But Harner is so involved listening to the story, it's the way he enjoys it.

Lentz said, "One of the years when I had a real quiet night, I had been up there pumping, and I couldn't get these people to laugh. And I was leaving with my pitcher of water under one arm and my script under the other and thinking to myself, 'Geez, I worked on this thing for weeks, trying to get my voice in shape. No one seems to like it. I don't know why I'm doing this.' And I came out and a couple of my friends were there, and they stopped to speak to me. And there was this man standing there in his raincoat shyly. And he came up to me and said, 'Sir, I just want you to know I've seen this every year since you've done it, and it really makes my Christmas.' " And with a watering in his eye, Lentz continued, "Here I am thinking about quitting, and this guy has come every year."

It is this warmth which attracted him to the reading in North Carolina, and it is this human warmth which keeps him attracted to the reading now. Lentz even seems to feel an affection toward the character he plays, Scrooge.

"He's softening right from the beginning," Lentz said.

He recalls a scene in which Scrooge as a young boy is sitting in a school, alone by a low fire, trying to read. He's cold and lonely. The older Scrooge weeps from that memory, and the ghost asks him what's wrong. Scrooge tells him that he recalls a little boy who was singing Christmas carols at his door earlier and how he wished he had given him something. Later, he looks at Bob Cratchet's wife and sees how beautiful she is and how she reminds him of the fiancée he left behind.

"It's those moments I hope will stand out," Lentz said.