By JOHN HERRINGTON

BAY VILLAGE-When Dick Feagler first wrote the "Christmas at Aunt Ida's" column in 1993 he had no idea it would get the response it did. One of those who liked it was then-Plain Dealer editor David Hall. Hall decided it would be an annual holiday-time column. And so it has become.

Now, it's coming to the stage.

Huntington Playhouse in Bay Village is presenting the world premiere of "Christmas at Aunt Ida's" from November 24 through December 17. It is co-sponsored by The Kendal Corporation.

Moving the work from newsprint to theater didn't happen overnight. Huntington Playhouse managing Director Tom Meyrose and Feagler discussed it at length.

"We sat and chatted about it in great detail over several visits and social gatherings," Meyrose said.

He said, "Dick made it clear that if the column was going to be made into a play, he was not to be the focus of the play. He stressed that 'the family should be what's important.' He went on to explain that this is a reminiscence of the first Christmas gathering when all the men in the family were home for their first holiday after World War II."

Asked if he believed the column would make the transition to the stage, Feagler said that he "certainly knew that I wouldn't be able to write it."

Anne McEvoy would be able to write the script.

A friend of Meyrose, Ms. McEvoy had worked with Feagler on stage at Huntington and is a full-time writer/editor for the creative division of American Greetings, Inc. Her background is in theater and she has worked for more than 40 years in the Greater Cleveland area as director, playwright, composer, lyricist, choreographer and actor in professional and community theater.

"She was a logical one to use," Meyrose said. "She has worked for me at Huntington. I also felt that if this was an idea that would not work, she would be able to tell me and we could shelve the project."

While she realized that a column and a play are two separate entities, she saw lots of story-telling potential in the piece.

Feagler, Meyrose and McEvoy met frequently over the past two years learning about Feagler's family, researching not only his family tree but also the 1945/46 era, "melding the memories."

Meyrose said, "She has done a marvelous job fleshing out the Feagler relatives." Meyrose said there was a reading last January at his home, "with several performers being pulled in to read the first draft of the script."

"We were very impressed with what Anne had done," Feagler said.

That first draft, Meyrose said, "is nothing close to what we're working with now." He is directing the play. "I told the cast at the first rehearsal to plan on the show being re-written in some cases right up to a week before we open." That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but up until and since rehearsals began in September there have been at least two revisions.

Meyrose said that at that first reading, the performers "made it clear to Feagler that he had to be in the production because no one could deliver the lines from the column the way he could."

So, Feagler is in the production, but only in limited segments as narrator. He wrote the column, so was it easy for him to speak the lines? "Ha!" Feagler said. "I wrote the lines, but I didn't write them intending to memorize them!"

This is not Feagler's first visit to the Huntington Playhouse stage. His first role was as the curmudgeon Sheridan Whiteside in "The Man Who Came to Dinner."

He's far from being surly and ill-mannered this time in urging his audience, "Let's go to my Aunt Ida's house. Come on. It won't take long. You'll be home in time for the 11 o'clock news, I promise you."

If you go, you'll meet Cousin Stanley (of cigar and 10-inch television set fame), Uncle Ziggy, Cousin Billy, and, of course, Aunt Ida and other women and men and children (including Richard Feagler as a kid), many of whom aren't mentioned in the column but who are on stage and part of the Feagler family tree.

The characters and cast and other notes on the production are at the Huntington web site, Huntheatre@aol.com.

Anne McEvoy's script is dotted with funny lines and local references ("including a very interesting one about the Cleveland Browns," Meyrose said) that should bring laughs and smiles and memories.

Feagler makes slight revisions to his column each year to update it with references to current events.

But the theme never changes.

Meyrose summed it up: "Readers of 'Christmas at Aunt Ida's' tell Feagler by mail and e-mail that it brings back wonderful memories of holidays and those relatives that time tried to erase but never really does."

Feagler's final lines of his column and of the play speak of "those simple people who loved us and took care of us. They left us blessings we too rarely count. And, if we let them, they come back at Christmas with gifts of everlasting life."