Here’s what you will see onstage at Penobscot Theatre Company’s production of “A Christmas Carol”: Ebenezer Scrooge growling his way through London. Tiny Tim riding atop Bob Cratchit’s shoulder. You’ll watch snow falling and couples dancing. The night sky will shift from dark to light to dreamy. And Mrs. Cratchit will tie her apron for Christmas dinner.

Backstage is another story. That’s where I was on a recent night when “A Christmas Carol,” running through Dec. 23, went up for an audience on the public side of the “grand rag,” or red velvet curtain.

Before the show started, actors bumped around congenially, wishing each other a good show, adjusting hats and stoles, and clapping cast members on the back. Then the stage manager called: “Five minutes!” and “Have a good show, guys!” and a silence and stillness fell over the 20 or so people backstage, all of them dressed in Victorian clothing. A darkness took over the space only inches from where the din of the audience could he heard.

Everyone waited in places for artistic director Mark Torres to give his curtain speech. The lights went down in the house and came up as the curtain parted. Onstage, the show went on. But behind it all, actors dashed from left to right side, slipping past one another carefully and quietly. Technical staff chatted on headsets, calling the sound and light cues and yanking a rope to release plastic flakes from a snow cradle high above the stage. One actor stood silhouetted behind the set and held the clapper of a bell, which he rang on cue.

Elena DeSiervo, best known for her big soprano voice, stood alone in the dark behind a fully cloaking set piece and accompanied Dominick Varney who sang an onstage version of “O Holy Night.” When he finally appeared in the wings, she caught his eye and in her tiniest voice said: “Really nice job on the singing.”

That type of support, director Adam Kuykendall told me, is the backstage etiquette he likes to emphasize with casts. “It’s mainly to support each other in keeping the energy up,” he said. “It’s easy to get distracted. So I try to keep the collaborative aspect high. Everyone has the sense of this being their production.”

Including Ellery Goode, a 7-year old who plays Tiny Tim. His character is not onstage for much of the show. So he sometimes sits on a staircase, poking the air with his crutch, goofing mimelike with other kids in the cast, and waiting for Kuykendall, who also plays his father, to hoist him shoulder-side.

Before the show, Ellery told me about a train set he planned to buy the next day with his allowance. But he had more to say, too.

“What are you doing here?” he whispered to me in shadows.

“I’m a writer,” I explained.

“I wish I was that,” he said wistfully. “But I’m not.”

“Maybe someday,” I said.

“No,” he responded resolutely. “Someday I’m going to be a train engineer.”

A focused bedlam was going on around us in the dark. It was good bedlam and necessary bedlam but bedlam nevertheless – and just the right amount to keep Scrooge’s Christmas lesson magically unfolding for more than an hour onstage.

And when there wasn’t choreographed chaos, an intense stillness took over as actors stood motionless waiting to hear just the right words that would propel them into action. In those hushed moments, the actors, lit by an eerie black-blue hue, looked like ancient ghosts haunting the old Opera House. A large bunraku-style puppet, used for the ghastly Ghost of Christmas Future, hung on a post like a disembodied spirit.

But the cast is accustomed to this macabre atmosphere. It doesn’t creep them out. They have practiced and practiced and practiced in the midst of the big grey ghost, the stony, dungeon-like inner walls and the cold bursts of wintry air. Rotely and lithely, they are experts at stepping around and over winding cables. And – most of the time – they don’t bump into the sandbags and ropes that are a throwback to the antiquated counterweight system for moving scenery.

I, too, was a quick study at disappearing in the rush of activity – so much so that Ellery bumped into me once.

Then he stabbed me gently with his crutch.

“You jumped me,” he reprimanded. Then he yawned. “I’m bored.”

“When you’re onstage, do you think of yourself as Tiny Tim?” I asked leaning close to his ear.

“I think of myself as Timothy,” he hushed back. “My mom said last night that I shouldn’t be Tiny Tim because I’m not tiny.”

“No, you certainly are not,” I said. And just as I was noticing that he came between my waist and shoulder in height, Ellery brushed past me, adopting the limp he uses onstage. “I gotta go,” he breezed. “My part is coming up soon.”

I stepped out of the way – and not a moment too soon. It was time for Christmas past to lumber onto stage.

In a rare down moment, Ken Stack, who has played Scrooge more than 20 times, gave ready praise to the cast as its members whizzed by us. Something about Charles Dickens’ story brings out the best in professional and amateur actors alike, he said.

“This is a delightful cast and crew to work with,” said Stack. “It has become a real family. And that’s glorious when it happens.”

But it’s true, he added with a smile, “Backstage for this show is very intense. It’s like a massive, constantly moving puzzle that falls into a new place every time it stops.”

I noticed Ellery was back on his staircase perch. This time, I realized why. The show was nearing the last scene and Kuykendall was ready to put Tiny Tim on his shoulder for the famous “God bless us everyone” closer. The boy greeted his stage father with affection and leaned into the arms that lifted him into place.

As the two tiptoed past me and toward the light, Ellery turned, smiled and waved goodbye to me with his crutch. I watched from the wings as he took his last line, as the cast bowed to a standing ovation and then skipped backstage. Their regular voices, their normal footfalls and their street postures were back. A chatter rose in the now-lighted wings, and the actors began their transformation by slipping off stoles and top hats.

“That was even better than last time,” one person said.

“Yes,” someone else added as he wiped off his makeup, “it was very, very, very nice.”

For information about the Penobscot Theatre Production of “A Christmas Carol,” which runs through Dec. 23 at the Opera House in Bangor, call 942-3333. An American sign language performance will take place 2 p.m. Dec. 20. Alicia Anstead can be reached at 990-8266 or aanstead@bangordailynews.net.