Progress of a Program

December 2, 2011, is the date for our first performance of The Christmas Post. Most who attend will have no clue about the countless hours of rehearsals required to get to that point. Some of these rehearsals would have made for some pretty funny outtakes if there had been a camera around. But only a few know about the work that went into this before we even started to rehearse the lines and music.

I guess it all started around October of 2010. We were in the midst of preparing for the One Bethlehem Night Christmas musical that we performed last year. That musical was to be a one time event as a break from the 25 years of performing a Living Christmas Tree. We were struggling to find the support necessary to continue the Tree ministry, specifically in the areas of decorations, light programming and the choirs.

Our plans were to take a one year break from the Living Christmas Tree ministry while we worked on replacing old lighting so that we could continue the ministry the next year. However, by last October it was becoming more evident that the church body was not likely to step up to the challenge to help with restarting what had been an incredible ministry that reached thousands in our community each year. So I started researching alternatives for the following year. The Christmas Post was on the top of my list, so I started brainstorming ways we could adapt it to fit our small stage area as well as how to recruit people for the many roles it would involve.

Following a very successful Christmas musical in 2010, our senior pastor expressed that he would love to see something similar to what we were able to accomplish only on a much bigger scale. Well, that definitely fit The Christmas Post. But there were many obstacles to performing this in our church. My first goal was to find a way to take a platform which has a raised choral area and create an entirely level stage. I shared this information with several people at our church and this led to Bob Williams designing dozens of platform pieces that would set on top of our platform so it will become a single flat stage.

Before we jumped into building these, I looked at logistics for fitting all of the set pieces for the musical on our stage. While our church is blessed with a 45 foot tall worship center, our platform is much too small for our needs. We considered placing some of the major set pieces on the floors off of the platform, but this just did not work with the scenes and constant flow of this musical. So a decision was made to actually reduce the size of each piece of the set. Again, Bob Williams was instrumental in helping to do this.

In January 2011, I set out a rehearsal schedule and performance schedules. The cost for producing the musical had to be weighed so that we could determine how many performances would be needed. Costs would include: set design, advertising, tickets, programs, props, costumes, lighting needs, etc. In February I started contacting individuals about some of the main roles in the musical. The main concern for most was the large number of rehearsals that would be required. Most of these people are very involved in other church ministries and this was to be a major undertaking for them. In March I contacted a local artist to create the artwork for our advertisements, tickets, etc. In April we held auditions for additional cast members and I sought out helpers for our costumes as well as a stage manager. The dance routines and choreography were being created and prepared during May and June.

Rehearsals started in July. Most of the main cast members were required to attend four rehearsals a month at first. Then in October we started rehearsing twice a week. In November we will be holding almost three rehearsals per week as we near the first performance. During this time we continue to collect, buy, and find props and costumes. The set has almost been completed and once we put it on stage we will begin to paint it. The main cast will soon be joined by the chorus (additional characters and singers) which make up three separate groups of people (Newsies, Shoppers and Carolers).

Advertising started the first week of October in local newspapers and through the church, tickets have been sent to the printer, and our ticket team has begun filling these requests. The printed program has been designed and will soon be printed (it will be a single page newspaper that the Newsies will actually deliver to the audience). Parking lot workers and ushers have been contacted about serving and the sound and multimedia teams are preparing their rehearsal schedules. The lighting has yet to be programmed and the multimedia scripts have yet to be completed.

One other important area is food preparation. Our volunteers get very hungry, and in the case of the parking lot attendants, they get very cold. So we like to offer some hot meals for those who must arrive early and stay late for each performance.

If you haven't ordered your tickets yet, you can get a form from our church website. Print it out, fill it out and mail it in immediately to ensure that you get a good night for the performance. Hope to see you there.  Ticket Order Form